HUDSON DECLARES SUPPORT OF BAKER IN KIRKLAND TALK

Addressing the newly-formed Harvard Baker-for-President Club in Kirkland House last night, M. O. Hudson, Bemis professor of International Law at the Harvard Law School, announced his support of Mr. Baker in the coming campaign. Professor Hudson set forth his own and Mr. Baker's views on American entry into the League and expressed the hope that it would not be made a political issue. The text of his speech is printed in full below:

No Partisan Issue

Mr. Newton D. Baker's recent statement concerning the League of Nations puts the question of American membership where it belongs with reference to the coming presidential campaign. He wants to see the United States a member of the League of Nations, but he does not want the matter to be made a partisan issue. I entirely subscribe to this position. I have believed since 1919 that our own national interests demand that the United States should be a member of the League of Nations, and I think that it is inevitable that we shall at some time assume our place at the world's council table. Yet I believe this is not to be advanced by a partisan struggle. The whole question was beclouded when the League of Nations was made an issue in the 1920 campaign. We have now made some progress in living down the effect of a party division at that time. The revival of the issue in 1932 would put us back another decade.

Few of the great questions before the American people in recent years have been solved by a contest between our parties. Woman suffrage was not achieved as a result of any party victory, nor was prohibition. Certainly the voters of 1916 did not decide that the United States should enter the World War. And I hope that the question of our participation in maintaining the World Court can be decided favorably without making that a subject of party division.

Better Cooperation With League

We have greatly increased our cooperation with the League of Nations in recent years. The situation is now very different from that of 1921, when Secretary Hughes failed even to acknowledge communications from the Secretary General of the League. In 1922, I remember, an American Minister in Switzerland called me on the telephone in Geneva and asked me to meet him on the Quai outside as he preferred not to be seen in the Secretariat of the League of Nations. We have been represented at many League of Nations conferences in the past two years, even at one session of the Council. Today, we are represented in the League of Nations building by a delegation sent to the Disarmament Conference, and we have recently designated General McCoy a member of the League of Nations commission which has been sent to China.

President Should Push League

Now, I don't want to see such cooperation made more difficult, and for this reason I don't want to see the question of our relation to the League made an issue in the campaign. Instead, I hope to see a President elected next year who will push this cooperation further, and will educate the American people as to the necessity for pushing it further. There are many ways in which our cooperation ought to be increased, not to help other peoples but to help ourselves.

Cites Manchuria

Let me give you two examples. First, can anyone doubt that the machinery at Geneva for preserving the peace would have been much stronger during the past six months if from the very beginning of the Manchurian crisis last September our Government had been in avowed and effective cooperation with the Council of the League of Nations? We did send a representative to the Council, with limited powers, in October; but in November and December when we sent Chicago's playboy to Paris, he merely flirted with the Council, saying at one moment that he would and at the next moment that he would not attend its meetings. Our Government seems to be of the opinion that treaties to which we attach great importance have been violated, and yet a world conference is being held in Geneva today at which we are not represented.

Treaty Publicity

Let me cite another example. The United States, together with other nations of the world, has an interest in the publicity of treaty engagements. The League of Nations provides a method of registering treaty engagements in order that they may be known by the whole world. Almost 3000 treaties have been registered in the last few years, some of them by states not members of the League of Nations. The United States communicates its treaties but does not register them. We withhold our support of the only method practicable of banishing secret engagements. When a year ago thirty American professors of international law and international relations suggested that our treaties should be registered in Geneva, the Department of State replied that it would be "inappropriate." That is precisely the kind of question on which our cooperation could easily be extended.

Baker's Views

Mr. Baker's views on the League of Nations are well known. I feel sure that if he were elected President, he would extend our cooperation with the League and would make an effort to educate our public opinion on the subject as problems come along. For the future of the United States and the world, I hope that such a man can be elected President in 1932