''Simple, Natural, Normal"

''Simple, Natural, Normal"

The Administration's stand on the World Court was first explained by Secretary Hoover three weeks ago at Des Moines. The most important part of his speech was devoted to refuting critics of the President's proposal. The positive side of the Administration's case remained to be brought out by two speeches last week, one by President Harding himself at the annual luncheon of the Associated Press at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan, the other by Secretary Hughes before the American Society of International Law, at Washington.

The President began his discussion of the Court by a recital of five in- stances since 1904 in which the Republican party declared itself in favor of a World Court.

He asserted that the Administration had " definitely and decisively put aside all thought of the United States entering the League of Nations. It doesn't propose to enter now by the side door, the back door or the cellar door. I have no unseemly comment to offer on the League. It is serving the Old World helpfully; more power to it. ... Excessive friends of the League have beclouded the situation by their unwarranted assumption that it (adherence to the World Court) is a move toward League membership. Let them disabuse their minds. . . . The situation is likewise beclouded by those who shudder when the League is mentioned and who assume entanglement is unavoidable. Any entanglement would first require assent of the Senate, which is scarcely to be apprehended, and if by any chance the Senate approved of any entanglement, the present Administration would not complete ratification."

These words are significant because they present in substance what was also the preamble to Mr. Hughes' speech. This insistence in both speeches indicates very clearly the anxiety of the Administration to keep the World Court free from all the political animosity which attached to the League. As Mr. Harding said, he wishes adherence to the Court to be considered as a " simple, natural, normal proceeding."

He declared that the Court should be entered because of its importance as an agency for peace, and that its only connection with the League was that the League offered a practical means of electing judges. " One political bugbear " he admitted and discussed: that the British Empire has six votes in the Assembly of the League, which is one of the two bodies that elect the judges. He pointed out that Great Britain has, however, only one vote in the League Council which acts concurrently in the election of judges. This, and the fact that no nation may have more than one judge on the Court, afford, in his opinion, a protection through which we may " feel ourselves free from danger."