Revamped

The Republican majority in the Senate, long having refrained from taking any action on adherence to the World Court as proposed by Presidents Harding and Coolidge, began to look about for some form in which it could cast its action. It is soon to face a political campaign and the renewed assaults of the Democrats on Republican "do-nothing" foreign policy. It seemed imperative that some constructive Republican policy be pronounced. At this late part of the session there was small expectation of action, and in many ways action was undesirable, for a plan is often a more alluring thing to take before the electorate than an accomplishment.

So Senator Lodge mustered five of his Republican colleagues on the Foreign Relations Committee--Pepper, Brandegee, Lenroot, Moses, Wadsworth--and took them to the White House to speak to the President. What the President said, if he said anything, is not known. He had not applauded the plan for a new World Court proposed by Senator Lodge without consulting him (TIME, May 19). It was generally conceded that the Lodge Court was ready for its political obsequies, if it had not been stillborn. What was needed was a new scion, begotten or adopted with the President's assent, one in whom the party could unite its fondest hopes, one to whom it could Point with Pride in the next campaign.

If the Senators did not get much satisfaction at the White House, at least they went forth with the appearance of it. They appointed Senator George Wharton Pepper to discover a child fit for adoption and to propose a contract under which it would be entirely severed from its former parent and made the Republican Party's very own.

There was only one child that he found really suitable for their purpose --the Permanent Court of International Justice, nicknamed the "League Court." The manner of adoption which he proposed was very simple: to snip the cord which attached the Court to the League and strike the word League from the Court's surname.

Mr. Pepper's Proposal. The Senate should consent to the U. S. becoming adherent to the World Court on the following conditions: 1) that some 16 amendments should be made in the "statute" or charter by which the League created the Court; 2) that the U. S. qualify its adherence to the Court by a number of reservations; 3) that the U. S. in entering the Court should not commit itself, under the optional clause of the statute, to compulsory jurisdiction of the Court.

The Amendments. The chief changes proposed in the statute of the Court were: 1) that hereafter judges should be elected to the Court, not by the Assembly and Council of the League of Nations, but by exactly similar bodies made up from the signatories of the Court pact; 2) that in the Assembly of the Signatories (as opposed to the Assembly of the League) the various Dominions and States within the British empire should not have separate votes, but cast one united vote; 3) that the Court should be open to "all States recognized by treaty or diplomatic relations with the signatories." Most of the other amendments have to do entirely with striking from the statute the names of the League and of its parts, so that no taint of them might linger after.

The Reservations. Two principal reservations were suggested: 1) that the U. S. "disclaim all responsibility" for the exercise by the Court of its right to give advisory opinions. (This reservation was included to avoid the moral effect of an advisory decision by the Court on such a question, for example, as whether we ought to exclude Japanese immigrants from the U. S.); 2) that in adhering to the Court the U. S. assumes no obligation inconsistent with its rights under the Monroe Doctrine.

The Optional Clause. In the present form of the Court, nations adhering to it may at their discretion bind themselves to appear before the Court, subpoenaed, and to abide by its decisions. This form of "optional" compulsion has not been accepted by many nations adherent to the Court --in fact none of the great Powers has so bound itself. The "optional" compulsion clause would be retained in the new statute of the Court, and the U. S. would join the other great Powers in declining to be bound by it.

Mr. Pepper's proposal, in the form of a resolution, also suggested that the President call a third Hague conference to clarify and codify international law. Thus is the child complete which the Republicans are expected to take before the electorate, exclaiming: "Look at our handsome offspring."

When the Pepper proposal came up in the Foreign Relations Committee, the Republicans promptly fell in line and reported it out--in preference to the proposal made by President Harding for entering the World Court simply with reservations--in preference to the Lodge plan for a new World Court. The vote was 10 to 6, but some of those voting on the affirmative, merely wished to bring the question before the Senate.