Volume II Number 3 LEAGUE OF NATIONS Compiled by NOTE TO THE READER The paper in this volume is brittle or the We have bound or rebound the volume PLEASE HANDLE WITH CARE NEW YORK THE H. W. WILSON COMPANY 1924 INTRODUCTION The League of Nations is the culmination of an age long dream arising from many minds and through many channels to firmly establish the world in peace. The devastation and horror wrought by the World War furnished an immediate occasion for the practical institution of this ideal in organized, workable form. Idealism was rife after the ordeals the spirit of the world had .passed through. The Fourteen Points of President Wilson, upon the basis of which the Armistice was concluded, lifted high the hopes of mankind for the establishment of a just and durable peace. Among the proposals the fourteenth was for an association of nations "for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small nations alike. The Preliminary Peace Conference appointed a commission consisting of representatives of fourteen na tions who drew up the Covenant of the League of Nations, the revised draft being adopted on April 28, 1919. The League formally came into being on January 11, 1920 with the deposit of ratification of fourteen nations, membership since being increased to fifty-four. Notwithstanding our leading part in its formation, and the large support given by its advocates and friends, when brought before the United States for adoption it encountered sufficient strong opposition in the Senate to cause its rejection after months of debate, although with a large majority in favor of it. The establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice gave he opportunity to many to turn their hopes for interational cooperation to this as a substitute for the League ather than as the complement it was intended to be. But |