"Naturally"

Nurse Emily Stewart bustled about, last week, in a large, bright hotel suite at Geneva, Switzerland, tending a sparkling-eyed gentleman of 84. Her charge, she knew, had been Secretary of War of the U. S. way back in the days of President William McKinley. In fact the gentleman is so venerable that today the new U.S. Secretary of State--Henry Lewis Stimson--is a man who used to be a junior partner in the oldster's law firm. Therefore last week Nurse Emily Stewart felt a great sense of responsibility as she tended Elihu Root.

For their journey across the Atlantic in the dead of winter, Mr. Root and Nurse Stewart had taken the Italian liner Augustus ("No fog, no ice"), thus circumventing France and Spain, and approaching . Switzerland from its sunny Italian side. As the reward of these precautions efficient Nurse Stewart was able to send her charge forth from his hotel, last week, without even a cold, hale, vigorous and ready to grapple with the statesmen of the League.

Of course Mr. Root did not come as the official representative of President Hoover, though he came from him. just as Statesman Stimson went to settle the Nicaraguan situation "from" President Coolidge. He had no title, no authority except a tacit understanding that he spoke for the President. Nowadays U.S. diplomacy is like that; and so last week plain "Mr." Root was greeted with as many courtesies by the League's Big Three* as though his title were "Special Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary-- which it is in all but the capitalization, so far as Europe is concerned. Only in U.S. hay mows do a few yokels with pitchforks still believe that a citizen, who comes "from" the President, represents--as Mr. Root modestly says that he does--"only my own opinion."

In Geneva last week the Opinion of Elihu Root proved to be, in effect, a statement of the conditions under which the State Department now believes it possible to obtain the U.S. Senate's consent to U.S. adherence to the World Court. When this matter was last mooted, in 1926, the Senate produced famed "Reservation V"--considered by most Europeans and by nearly all South Americans as an unparalleled piece of arrogance. While agreeing that the U.S. should adhere to the Court, the Senate stipulated in "Reservation V" that thereafter the Court must not without the consent of the United States, entertain any request for an advisory opinion touching any dispute or question in which the United States has, or claims an interest. The expression "has or claims an interest" could easily be interpreted to cover any question under the sun, and both European and South American statesmen are never tired of pointing out that there is no way of telling who is to impart or withhold "the consent of the United States." Is it the Senate's consent that is meant, or the President's or what? Reservation V is thus not only arrogant but obscure, and therefore the League and Court States refused (1926) to accept the adherence of the U.S. on such terms --much as they want to welcome the U.S. into the World Court, which is the judicial antechamber of the political League of Nations.

Today Mr. Root is in Geneva primarily to put over the essence of Reservation V without its arrogance or obscurity. After an exchange of compliments with .the statesmen of the League council, he sat down among the jurists of a special League committee concerned with the World Court and imparted to them his Opinion.

It amounts to this: Whenever the World Court is asked to opine on any question, then let the U.S. State Department be previously informed; let every effort be made to frame the question in a form acceptable to the State Department; and if this prove impossible then let there be no hard feelings when the U.S. "naturally" withdraws from adherence to the court.

The masterly portion of Mr. Root's long and technical Opinion is that containing the word "naturally," used of course as the very politest synonym for "inevitably" or "automatically." This part of the Opinion reads: ". . . If it shall appear . . . that no agreement can be reached . . . then it shall be deemed that owing to material difference of view . . . exercise of powers of withdrawal [by the U.S.] will follow naturally without any imputation of unfriendliness or unwillingness to cooperate generally for peace and good will."

Jurist Elihu Root and Nurse Emily Stewart expected, last week, to be in Geneva for at least a month while his opinion is weightily deliberated. Nearly all the South American diplomats in Geneva voiced privately to correspondents their displeasure at what they called the "fawning" reception accorded Mr. Root by the European and Central American diplomats.

"Everyone around here seems to owe money to Uncle Sam or wants to!" a representative of one of the three great South American Powers exclaimed. "Washington continues to demand what is really veto power. Although I have been given privately to understand--by one who does not even represent Washington officially--that they will object to opinions on only a few subjects such as the Monroe Doctrine, I remind myself that the expression 'Monroe Doctrine' is even more elastic in the Americas than 'has or claims an interest.' "

*Foreign Secretaries Sir Austen Chamberlain (Britain): M. Aristide Briand (France): Dr. Gustav Stresemann (Germany).