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INTRODUCTION
We are warned that the civilization which we presently enjoy might be dissolved
before our very eyes, unless man's lust for power through revolution and war be
promptly curbed.
Since we have taken the lead in establishing the United Nations, with the rank and
file of the world's citizenry desiring the peace which its charter professes, we do well
to consider the basic documentation of that union.
The author, a prominent Ohio attorney, surveys problems and issues, and out of the
often complex, confusing UN picture brings a measure of order and understanding,
together with a workable and practical formula for the future. His book is fully documented and replete with scholarly material. The serious reader will be richly rewarded
by studying the book as a whole.
WORLD PEACE BY COVENANT
A CONDENSATION
I. HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
The dream of world peace based upon an international order of government and law is a concept
that belongs to the modern world. There have been
other epochs in history in which periods of international
order have appeared, but none in which there has been a
conscious effort to build a world order upon established
principles common to all people. The Boman Empire is
the best example; it was an international order accomplished by conquest and subjugation of the known world.
Such procedure is, we hope, not possible in the modern
world. Certainly, from the American point of view, it is
not desirable.
The Pax Romana is of more than passing historical
interest, because it contains theories that tire today of
great practical importance. Having gained the world by
force, the Roman found it expedient to rule by law. He
compiled a body of law, drawing heavily on the local
rules of conduct of his conquered peoples. This law, the
"law of nations," later formulated into the Code Justinian,
was done perfectly enough to furnish one of the enduring
and significant patterns contributing to civilization.
Only within the last thirty years has any real attempt
been made to convert into reality the dream of world
peace along democratic lines. William Howard Taft advocated a League to Enforce Peace. Woodrow Wilson
designed the League of Nations, allegedly to make the
world safe for democracy — a league which lasted but
nineteen years, and into which the United States refused
to be drawn.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, in collaboration with Winston
Churchill, promulgated the Four Freedoms — freedom of
speech, freedom of religion, freedom from want, and
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freedom from fear - expressed in the Atlantic Chart*
Harry S. Truman spurred into being Roosevelt's cflort
lor a United Nations.
From history, and from the best thought of the West*
world, we learn that international order must be pre*
cated either on force or on law. There are no alternative*
The choice is ours, and the wisdom of our choice and
the materials we use will be determined much later 1
our posterity from the manner in which our edifice, f
United Nations, weathers the storms of present and fuW
years.
For nearly a century and a half before this counts
participation in global warfare Americans had iiiilnl'-'
an isolationist policy, predicated upon the admonition
George Washington to avoid foreign entanglements f
distinguished from foreign relations, which latter are R
escapable between nations.
True, our nation during the interim had relaxed '
aloofness to include our hemispherical neighbors wit'*'
its protectorate. That relationship developed undi
Monroe Doctrine had already become bedrocked into " .
national thinking long before 1914 — a doctrine contini"^
by the recent Act of Chapultepec. Without bore
defense, we had become accustomed to live at peace <fl
Canada.
It was our participation in the first World War wh1^
cracked the shell of isolationism. It was the second Wojj
War which made us indeed extrovert in our potttfl
thinking. On July 28, 1945, we went all-out to elimiii'1,
war, when ex-President Truman and the Senate support'
the United Nations Charter, adopted at San FrandL
by the delegates of fifty nations, representing sol'
1,700,000,000 people. Sixty nations are now admitted
Facts Forum News, August, 1™
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