CREPE FOR THE LEAGUE

Somehow, Geneva has been particularly impotent during the recent succession of European crises. One might expect the usual beau geste, the customary mellow phrase from that superannuated society of diplomats, but even that has been lacking. The reason may be found in the constitution of the organization itself. At its inception, the right to declare war was expressly reserved for each of its members gathered, ostensibly, to outlaw it. Rampant, nationalisms cannot enter a suicide pact cheerfully unless their pistols are loaded with blank cartridges.

The single vote vote has deadlocked every important question, nipped in the bud all chance of action--that is, until it became apparent that great issues stood no chance of success in that body and ceased to be raised. If a simple majority vote, backed by the threat of an economic boycott, were possible today, England, France, and Italy might act for peace against Nazi aggression through the League; as it is, they are endangering their own prospects of peace, their relations with central European powers, by acting as separate nations in rebuking Hitler, warning him against further action in Austria.

There remains one happy thought, if the United States had joined, half the little good the League has done would have been frustrated. That the League has lived to this date is only due to the fact that our own national selfishness was not added to the din of European bickering. We can watch its demise comfortably, conscious that our efforts to defeat it by remaining outside were responsible for its living on to prove its own fallacy.