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 OUTLAWRY of WAR 
 
 SALMON O. LEVINSON 
 
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 December 25, 192 1 
 
 UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNM 
 AT 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 LIBRARY 
 
 ISSUED BY THE 
 AMERICAN COMMITTEE 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 OUTLAWRY OF WAR 
 
 76 WEST MONROE ST. 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
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 Introduction >..u -? 
 
 War between nations with all its attendant horrors 
 has always been, and is now, perfectly legal. A direct 
 attack by one nation on another, no matter how un- 
 justified, is a legal procedure. Even the Kaiser was vio- 
 lating no known law by declaring war in 1914. What- 
 ever value wars may have had in the past, these last 
 years have shown modern war to be so terrible an in- 
 strument, so far reaching in its destruction and the re- 
 ^ suits of that destruction, that its use in our closely inter- 
 ^ dependent present-day civilization jeopardizes the very 
 life of that civilization. 
 
 ^ 
 
 4 
 
 The appeal to force, therefore, between nations as 
 between individuals, is, under existing conditions, intol- 
 erable and should be forever outlawed. This was the 
 method by which the legal war between individuals, 
 called duelling, was abolished — the institution was made 
 a crime and punished as such. The nations can do the 
 ^; same for war, and establish orderly legal procedure to 
 settle their disputes, and make war between nations a 
 ^ public crime under an international code of law. 
 
 I In any reform there are two elements — the principle 
 ^ and the methods by which the principle is made effective. 
 ^ The following pages contain a statement of the principle 
 and certain suggestions as to how it can be carried out. 
 oX They have been carefully prepared, and no less an au- 
 thority than the late Senator Knox (Secretary of State 
 under President Taft) believed them to be practicable. 
 But like all questions of method they are subject to sug- 
 gestion and modification. Whether they shall be en- 
 forced by President Harding's Association of Nations, 
 by some modified form of the present League, by a future 
 Hague Conference, or by some machinery yet to be
 
 created, — does not impair the validity of the principle 
 of the outlawry of war. 
 
 Salmon O. Levinson, Chairman 
 
 Mrs. B. F. Langworthy, Secretary 
 
 Margaret Dreier Robins 
 
 F. R. Moulton 
 
 Raymond Robins 
 
 Edward Osgood Brown 
 
 Albert H. Loeb 
 
 Mrs. William S. Hefferan 
 
 Mrs. A. G. Becker 
 
 Joseph M. Artman 
 
 Milton F. Goodman 
 
 Mrs. Russell Tyson 
 
 Committee.
 
 OUTLAWRY OF WAR 
 
 "If I catch the conscience of America we'll lead the 
 world to outlaw war." 
 
 Senator Harding, September 4, 1920. 
 
 "Let us give of our influence and strength, yea, olF 
 our aspirations and convictions, to put mankind on a 
 higher plane, with war's distressing and depressing trag- 
 edies barred from the stage of righteous civilization." 
 
 "There must be, there shall be, the commanding voice 
 of a conscious civilization against armed warfare." 
 
 President Harding at Arlington, 
 November 11, 1921. 
 
 "The call is not of the United States of America alone, 
 it is rather the spoken word of a war- weary world, 
 struggling for restoration, hungering and thirsting for 
 better relationship; of humanity crying for relief and 
 craving assurances of lasting peace." 
 
 "Contemplating the measureless cost of war and the 
 continuing burden of armament, all thoughtful peoplevS 
 wish for real limitations of armament and would like 
 war outlawed." 
 
 President Harding Keynote Conference 
 Address— November 12, 1921. 
 
 "As soon as world conditions permit participation 
 therein by all peoples, initiate an international conference 
 to formulate for submission to the nations of the world with 
 a view to adoption by them, an arrangement providing 
 for the codification of international law, the establisment 
 
 8
 
 of a court of international justice and the outlawry of 
 war. This arrangement to be as complete, comprehensive 
 and compelling as shall be consistent with human rights 
 and human liberty and with the progress of civilization." 
 P. C. Knox Speech in U. S. Senate — May 5, 1920 
 
 "Above all, making sure that war shall henceforth 
 be declared to be a crime punishable by the law of na- 
 tions." 
 
 Lloyd George, Great Britain's Peace Aims 
 
 June 1918. 
 
 "War in itself and for itself is the greatest crime in 
 the world and the glory of victory pursued for itself is 
 a crime. This world is made for peace and for work in 
 peace time. The first duty is to work for our people, 
 not to fight." 
 
 Marshal Foch, Detroit, 
 November 7, 1921.
 
 Foreword 
 
 By Dr. John Dewey, Columbia University. 
 
 There are at least some persons who in the days just 
 before and after the Armistice favored a League of Na- 
 tions who afterwards changed their mind. As one such 
 person I should like to mention two reasons for the change, 
 not for controversial purposes or to make a contrast 
 which Mr. Levinson has himself wisely refrained fr6m 
 making, but for the sake of indicating why those who 
 favored the League and those who now oppose it should 
 unite in favoring the plan for a world court based upon 
 world codification of international law having for its major 
 premise the outlawry of war. The peoples of the world 
 are not yet educated enough in international affairs to 
 guarantee the successful workings of a political League, 
 even supposing the idea is inherently desirable. And any 
 present scheme is bound to make much of the sanction 
 of physical force against recalcitrant nations. In that 
 way, it continues the old tradition of the lawfulness of 
 war. What the world now needs is enlightenment and a 
 concentration of moral forces. The plan suggested by 
 Levinson is simple and understandable. Like all really 
 simple and intelligible propositions, it goes to the root 
 of the situation. Above all it does more than any other 
 plan yet proposed to provide natural and orderly agen- 
 cies for enlightening the peoples regarding disputes among 
 nations, and for concentrating all the moral forces of the 
 world against modern war, that abomination of abomi- 
 nations. If we cannot trust to the good-will and good 
 faith of the peoples of the world expressing the common 
 purpose and judgment through law, the only means of 
 expression the world has discovered for all other disputes, 
 no political machinery will work and the world is doomed 
 to war and doomed by war. 
 
 7
 
 Foreword 
 
 By Judge Edward O. Brown, Chicago, III. 
 
 Dr. Dewey's foreword to Mr. Levinson's interesting 
 and significant brochure speaks for those who just before 
 and after the Armistice favored a League of Nations, and 
 subsequently changed their minds. I have been in favor 
 of the League of Nations from the day that the plan for 
 it took form in 1915, — and have not changed my mind. 
 It is not my purpose to be controversial any more than 
 it was Dr. Dewey's. I will not therefore undertake to 
 give reasons for my belief that the solidarity of civiliza- 
 tion has been advanced by the actual definite existence 
 of the League of Nations even in its present defective and 
 inefficient form — a form which must continue to be defec- 
 tive and inefficient until the United States and Germany 
 are both members of it. I am merely stating my belief and 
 position to emphasize my opinion, as it is Dr. Dewey's, 
 that there is no reason why friends a;nd foes of the League 
 as it exists or as it may be amended should not unite in 
 favoring the plan which Mr. Levinson has so forcefully 
 outlined. 
 
 It seems to me incredible that any man can approve 
 or defend war as a method of settling disputes between 
 races, peoples or nations. If he does so, he is preaching the 
 devil's doctrine. Defense of ourselves and of others at- 
 tacked aggressively and wantonly may compel resort to 
 any arms that may be available, and even the virtues 
 which may show themselves in such a defensive war 
 are the product of prior peaceful times, while the vices 
 which become rampant and widespread during and after 
 it are developed and aggravated by the war itself. 
 
 Attempts to render war less cruel or savage by formu- 
 lating so-called "laws of war" and to provide for its
 
 conduct humanely are food to the gods for laughter! You 
 cannot feed tigers on oranges. 
 
 But to formulate and codify laws, rules and decisions 
 which shall "outlaw" aggressive war and declare it to 
 be the chief of crimes and thereby prevent it, ought not 
 to be a hopeless endeavor. 
 
 Such a noble effort Mr. Levinson is trying to foster. 
 The heart of his plan, as I view it, is the codification of 
 International Law, by leading jurists of the world, with 
 all civilized nations participating, and the establishment 
 of a permanent International Court with real jurisdiction 
 to take cognizance of offenses against such a Code, and 
 to hear and determine purely international disputes. 
 
 Whatever may be the merits or defects of the Present 
 League of Nations neither that nor any other association 
 of nations that takes its place can be of its proper benefit 
 to the world without such a codification and such a Court.
 
 Foreword 
 
 By Col. Raymond Robins, Chicago, 111. 
 
 The people of the world are ready and eager for the 
 next step in the slow advance from savagery toward inter- 
 national civilization. They believe that the boundless 
 sacrifices and sufferings of the Great War should have 
 some milestone of progress in the moral code of mankind. 
 
 They want war unmasked and declared in inter- 
 national law to be what it is in fact, the supreme enemy 
 of the human race. 
 
 They want the conscience of men everywhere to 
 think of war, not as an honorable profession, not as the 
 path to glory and power, but as the arch murderer of the 
 youth of the race — the master assassin of motherhood 
 and the home. 
 
 They want war revealed as the paralysis of produc- 
 tion and the suicide of commerce, the betrayal of brother- 
 hood, the poison in the cup of good-will between the 
 nations of the earth, the forerunner of pestilence and 
 famine, spreading ruin and desolation alike upon the 
 victors and the vanquished and crucifying Christ afresh 
 on every battlefield. 
 
 They want war outlawed as a crime against the law 
 of nations and the life of humanity. 
 
 They want militarists branded as super felons among 
 the criminals of the earth. 
 
 Let the first step toward the outlawry of war be taken 
 by the conference now at Washington, and it will in this 
 act alone, mark an epoch in the life of the race and lift 
 mankind to new levels of moral understanding and power. 
 This step would begin the liberation of the people from 
 the age long thraldom of the Sword and prove that the 
 countless dead on all the battlefields of the Great War 
 have not died in vain. 
 
 10
 
 PLAN TO OUTLAW WAR* 
 
 A Conference of all civilized nations to be called for 
 the creation and codification of international law; the 
 code to contain, among other things, the following provi- 
 sions, with which none of the other provisions of the code 
 shall be in conflict: 
 
 1. The further use of war as an institution for th'e 
 settlement of international disputes shall be abolished. 
 
 2. War between nations shall be declared to be a 
 public crime, punishable by the law of nations. 
 
 3. War shall be defined in the code and the right of de- 
 fense against actual or imminent attack shall be preserved. 
 
 4. All annexations, exactions or seizures, by force, 
 duress or fraud, shall be null and void. 
 
 5. An international court with affirmative jurisdiction 
 over purely international disputes shall be created 
 modelled as nearly as may be on the jurisdiction of the 
 United States Supreme Court over controversies between 
 states. All purely international disputes as defined by 
 the code shall be decided and settled by the international 
 court sitting as a judicial body, which shall be given juris- 
 diction over all parties to a dispute upon the petition of 
 any party to the dispute or of any signatory nation. 
 
 6. All nations shall agree to abide and be bound by 
 and in good faith to carry out the orders, decrees and 
 decisions of such Court. 
 
 7. One nation cannot summon another before the 
 International Court except in respect to a matter of 
 international and common concern to the contending 
 nations, and the jurisdiction of the court shall not extend 
 to matters of governmental, domestic or protective policy 
 
 *Formulmt«<l In 1919 by the Ut« SeoAtor K&oi tod the author. 
 
 U
 
 unless one of the disputing parties has by treaty or other- 
 wise given another country a claim that involves these 
 subjects. The classes of disputes excluded from the juris- 
 diction of the international court should be specifically 
 enumerated in the code and not be left open to the flexible 
 and dangerous distinction between justiciable and non- 
 justiciable controversies. 
 
 8. The court should sit in the hemisphere of the contend- 
 ing nations; and if the disputants live in opposite hem- 
 ispheres, then in the hemisphere of the defendant nation. 
 
 9. National armaments to be reduced to the lowest 
 point consistent with domestic safety and with the necessi- 
 ties of international requirements. 
 
 10. Abolition of professional soldiery and the substi- 
 tution of a potential army through citizen soldiery on 
 the Swiss model. 
 
 11. All nations shall make public report once each 
 year setting forth fully their military and naval arma- 
 ments, structural and chemical. These reports to be 
 verified by authorized committees. 
 
 12. The doctrines of military necessity, retaliation 
 and reprisal which are open to such flagrant and abhorrent 
 abuse, shall be eliminated. 
 
 An international arrangement based on the foregoing 
 would not impair our independence or our sovereignty; 
 it would relieve the world of the destructive incubus of 
 war; it would civilize international relations by the sub- 
 stitution of real law and a real court for the bloody de- 
 cisions of war; it would preserve the Monroe Doctrine, 
 our tariff and revenue policies, our right to repel invasion, 
 our right to expel aliens and all other domestic and pro- 
 tective policies (the other nations to enjoy corresponding 
 
 M
 
 rights and policies); it would eliminate aggression, duress, 
 fraud and secret diplomacy in international dealings; it 
 would rob the profession of killing of its glory and prestige, 
 and it would outlaw war by making it a public crime pun- 
 ishable by the law of nations. 
 
 It
 
 ANALYSIS OF PLAN 
 
 L Civilization has been marked in its upward trend 
 out of savagery into its present condition by the evolution 
 of law and courts to supplant methods of violence and 
 force. 
 
 2. Processes of courts and law have been adopted 
 in all human relations, from individuals and corporations 
 to states within a nation, except in the international 
 field. Here disputes between nations can be compulsorily 
 settled only by force of arms. There is no authoritative 
 law or court. Nations remain in this regard in a state 
 of nature. 
 
 3. Disputes are human and inevitable whether be- 
 tween individuals or between nations. War is inhuman 
 and is inevitable only by tradition. 
 
 4. There are but two ways of compelling settlement 
 of disputes whether intranational or international in 
 character; one is by force and the other is by law. In 
 international controversies the resort to force has always 
 been open. 
 
 5. War is an institution. An institution is a custom 
 not contrary to law established over long periods among 
 peoples and races. The church is an institution; marriage 
 is an institution; slavery was an institution. 
 
 6. All wars between nations are legal. War has never 
 been made unlawful by any convention or treaty or so- 
 called international law since the time of Adam. It is at 
 once the greatest and most lawful "crime" in the world. 
 
 7. For example, suppose the Kaiser had simply de- 
 clared in 1914 that Germany's desire for a place in the 
 sun meant he would take the whole of France and Bel- 
 gium, and thereupon declared war on both those coun-
 
 tries: — there is nothing in any work on international law 
 or in any treaty or convention that would have made 
 that pronouncement of war illegal. Wars may be wicked 
 and cruel but not unlawful. "The King can do no wrong." 
 
 8. In dealing with any other form of evil our first 
 impulse is to have the legislature or congress pass a law 
 making the practice illegal and criminal. If that is the 
 way to deal with ordinary grievances, why not try the 
 beaten path with the greatest of all wrongs? We want 
 not ''laws of war" but "laws against war" as we have 
 laws against murder and burglary. The recent revival 
 at Washington of proposals for "rules" regulating or 
 prohibiting the use of poison gases and submarines seems 
 like sheer mockery so long as war itself remains legal. 
 Besides, the last war certainly demonstrated the futility 
 of relying on "rules of humanized warfare." 
 
 9. The farcical exhibition at Versailles of the attempt 
 to indict the Kaiser for the "crime" of starting the war 
 emphasizes this point. There never was a law against 
 war upon which to base such an indictment. And strange 
 to say, the nations, thwarted by this terrible defect in 
 international law, did not adopt a convention, enact a 
 law or take any steps at Versailles to make war a crime 
 and thus lay the foundation for the indictment of the 
 "next Kaiser". 
 
 10. The reduction of armaments is most valuable as 
 an economic remedy and a splendid step in the right 
 direction. The people rightly demand and will have it. 
 But that does not lay the axe to the root. Suppose all 
 countries should reduce their aramments to what they 
 were say in 1870 or in 1850 or in 1800 — was the world not 
 cursed with war then? Indeed, the United States had very 
 small armaments in 1917 but had the intri^isic power to 
 create large ones by 1918. The logic of disarmament, 
 according to General Hugh S. Johnson, in a series of
 
 brilliant articles in the New York World, is as follows: 
 "Finally it must be recognized that no possible project 
 of disarmament can create a condition of equilibrium as 
 between weak and powerful nations. ... A disproportion- 
 ate condition would remain if all nations would completely 
 disarm just as it would remain if all would arm to the 
 limit of their resource. . . . The justification of this is in 
 part the principle that a giant with a sword is little, if 
 any, more dangerous to a Lilliputian than a giant with 
 a club." 
 
 We want not fewer wars but no wars; not less destruc- 
 tive wars but no wars at all. Limitation of armaments is 
 not enough. In the crisp words of President Harding, 
 the crying need is: "Less of armament and none of war." 
 
 n. The closest historical analogy to war is the duel, 
 "duellum" and "bellum" both originally meaning war. 
 The duel had its origin in Germany and now survives 
 to some extent there and in France and Italy. In England 
 and in this country it passed muster for centuries, re- 
 maining lawful because of the "honor" element which it 
 was supposed to uphold. It was as late as 1850 before 
 the duel was pronounced murder in the last of our states 
 and thus outlawed. The practice of duelling is now 
 extinct because it is plain murder under our laws. Ques- 
 tions of "honor" were as fallacious as they were bountiful 
 in the institution of duelling and as they are still in the 
 institution of war. Man has not become a mollycoddle 
 because he cannot resent every supposed affront to his 
 "honor" by a sword-thrust or a bullet. We have nobly 
 abolished the institutions of duelling and slavery; why 
 not abolish the institution of war? 
 
 12. In creating a real international court, the subtle 
 and mischievous distinction between justiciable (triable) 
 and non-justiciable (not triable) controversies must not 
 be permitted to defeat its jurisdiction. If it lies in the
 
 power of a nation itself to say that a cause is non-justici- 
 able and that therefore the court cannot take jurisdiction 
 over it, all judicial power crumbles. It is not only easy 
 for chancellors or premiers to give a dispute a non-justi- 
 ciable turn but, as a matter of fact, practically all the 
 wars in the past hundred and fifty years have started 
 from non-justiciable causes. That was the case in the late 
 war. The word "non-justiciable" is but a new edition 
 of the old phrase * national honor and vital interests." , 
 While it is true that a nation's honor and its vital inter- 
 ests should be safeguarded, this exception is used not to 
 safeguard these things but to justify and fortify war. The 
 new code must itself state what causes are within the 
 jurisdiction of the court and what are not, and must now 
 allow an individual country' to decide the matter for the 
 court. The proposed plan covers this by excluding from 
 the jurisdiction of the court all domestic and protective 
 questions (like revenues, immigration, Monroe Doctrine, 
 etc.) which shall be agreed upon for all countries and 
 enumerated in the code. In this way the jurisdiction of 
 the court over all purely international disputes can be 
 protected and maintained. 
 
 13. The proposition that the causes of things must 
 be first removed, e. g. the causes of war, the causes of 
 armament, etc., is fallacious and plays into the hands 
 of militarists. However commendable it is to solve the 
 problems of evil and injustice in the world great reforms 
 cannot await such slow and indefinite processes. Thus: 
 Suppose an attempt had been made to remove the causes 
 of duelling before outlawing it; would the day before 
 judgment day have seen it abolished? No. The causes of 
 duelling were as various as human motives. The causes 
 of war or of armament or of duelling (or of disputes, 
 which are basic to the foregoing) will be removed when 
 the era of the brotherhood of man is ushered in and not 
 before. 
 
 J7
 
 It is claimed by some that the underlying causes of 
 war are existing trade barriers and that if we remove 
 these we will eliminate war. Others insist that religious 
 and race hatreds and prejudices cause war. But these 
 trade barriers and hatreds merely beget disputes which 
 the bloody "court" of war settles. It is this legal device 
 of violence that must be removed. For the remedy 
 of war has now become always worse than the dis- 
 ease. We must continue more and more to put civili- 
 zation under the control of law and courts and not wait 
 until we have removed causes that are buried perhaps 
 irremovably in the breast of human nature. 
 
 14. From the foregoing it follows that in order to 
 outlaw war, it is necessary to codify international law, and 
 one of the first articles of the code should abolish the 
 institution of war for the settlement of disputes between 
 nations, by making it illegal and criminal. A real court 
 should be created with power judicially to hear and de- 
 termine all international controversies as enumerated in 
 the code. 
 
 15. The code should be prepared by the leading states- 
 men and jurists of the world with all civilized nations 
 represented in an International Conference called for that 
 purpose. It may take two years to prepare such a code. 
 Senator Knox thought it would take five years. There- 
 fore, a commitment in principle to a plan for the codifi- 
 cation of international law, the creation of a court with 
 affirmative specified jurisdiction and the criminal out- 
 lawry of war is all that is necessary at this time. The 
 Code Conference will do the rest. 
 
 16. The expense of securing and liberally paying for 
 the services of the best brains of the world for the work 
 of codification, and also giving each member of the Con- 
 ference a life pension, will not exceed one-one hundredth 
 of one per cent of the cost of the last war, or thirty 
 million dollars. 
 
 SI
 
 17. It remains to consider the obstacles and objections 
 to such a program. They seem to be as follows: 
 
 (a) The love of power that resides in rulers and their 
 ministers which disincline them to lose their greatest 
 weapon. This, of course, applies mainly to the large 
 nations, as most of the small nations have been willing to 
 do away with war for many years. At both Hague Con- 
 ferences the small nations tried to have universal obliga- 
 tory arbitration adopted, but the big nations always 
 defeated it. The first obstacle thus applies to the large 
 nations and usually takes on this word-formula: 'The 
 world is not yet ready for so great a step". The United 
 States, however, through Mr.Choate, at the second Hague 
 Conference, took a leading stand in favor of universal 
 arbitration. It is the purpose of the big nations, as shown 
 by Article XV' of the League of Nations, to refer to arbi- 
 tration only such disputes as they see fit, reserving to 
 themselves the power of their armaments to decide all 
 others. This is why Article XIV of the League creates an 
 internationalcourt without any inherent jurisdiction at all. 
 It is purely a consent court with the right of consent to 
 jurisdiction to be given or withheld at the pleasure of 
 any nation after the dispute has arisen. In short, it is 
 no court at all. 
 
 (b) Another objection is that if the proposed inter- 
 national court is given affirmative jurisdiction to hear and 
 determine disputes (which it has under the outlawry 
 proposal) it must have the power to enforce its decrees. 
 Particularly to a lawyer this seems at first to be necessary 
 to the dignity and respect of any court. The international 
 court must of course be given adequate power to enforce 
 its judgments against all war criminals. The precise 
 manner in which this may best be accomplished would be 
 one of the important functions of the Codification Con- 
 ference. But as to the civil decrees of the court a reading 
 
 It
 
 of the history of our constitutional debates will probably 
 be persuasive if not convincing that force is not indispens- 
 able. When it was proposed to give the United States 
 Supreme Court original jurisdiction over controversies 
 between states, it was contended that the court should 
 have the power to enforce its judgments in sudi cases as 
 in all others. Madison, however, took the ground that 
 to do so would be to destroy the sovereignty of the in- 
 dividual state, and wowld create anarchy, revolt and 
 rebellion. He contended it was not proper to appoint a 
 receiver for a state and that reliance must be placed on 
 the consent of the states to the jurisdiction of the Supreme 
 Court and on their agreement to abide by its decisions. 
 As great an authority as the late Senator Knox believed 
 this to be a practical working model for the World Court. 
 However, this question of enforcement is one to be 
 settled by the learned delegates at the convention 
 for the codification of international law. Much may be 
 said in favor of an international force, or a force contri- 
 buted to by various nations to aid in the execution of 
 the international court's civil decrees as well as its 
 criminal judgments. Whichever way this may be decided, 
 it will not affect the reason for outlawing war. 
 
 It is probable that revolution cannot be altogether 
 prevented. For if a nation is strong and mad enough to 
 defy the world, either generally or in resistance to a 
 decree of an international court, that is a risk that must 
 be provided against, because it will always be inherent 
 in any program. But revolutions, as we ordinarily view 
 them, are domestic in character and therefore not within 
 the scope of the theory of outlawry which deals only with 
 controversies between nations. Any form of domestic 
 violence whether arising through revolution, riots or 
 otherwise, is subject to the control of intranational ma- 
 chinery and amenable to domestic law. 
 
 20
 
 (c) i\nother objection is that some nation might plan 
 to overrun the world while other nations were sleeping. 
 The program of outlawry does not call for an abatement 
 of armaments beyond the point of safety. Reduction of 
 armaments is a world-wide economic necessity as well as 
 a profound move toward peace; but the question of out- 
 lawry is one that can be considered entirely apart from 
 the question of the size of the armaments necessary for 
 each nation to protect itself against possible bad faith dr 
 disobedience to law or violation of contract or treaty 
 rights. But when war becomes a crime armaments will 
 subside. 
 
 (d) Still another objection is that outlawry of war 
 cannot be established because of the essential difference 
 between disputes among individuals and disputes between 
 nations. Here, of course, the conception of sovereignty 
 interposes itself. There has been considerable confusion 
 of the two words "sovereignty" and "independence". 
 A nation's independence must be maintained at all haz- 
 ards; its sovereignty is "invaded" every time it makes a 
 treaty or contract or puts a check upon its original un- 
 limited power in any respect. Essentially, international 
 disputes are the same as individual disputes in that they 
 legitimately involve property or property rights and 
 questions of liberty. Take the case of Alsace-Lorraine: 
 After all, through the centuries, it was a controversy over 
 real estate; a large amount of real estate to be sure, and 
 involving, incidentally, a question of national allegiances; 
 but inherently a question of title to real estate. In con- 
 sidering outlawry of war we must assume that disputes 
 between nations are legitimate. If they are legitimate 
 there ought to be a court that has the power to hear and 
 determine such disputes under a code of law for the es- 
 tablishment of justice. If the controversies are illegiti- 
 mate, that is, covers for conquest, they should not be 
 allowed to provoke war and to spread destruction and 
 
 ti
 
 death. After all, disputes will arise and they must get 
 settled, if not by law and courts, then by violence and war. 
 A sovereign nation that would set itself up above all 
 the laws of justice in its dealings with other nations is 
 unworthy to retain its sovereignty. 
 
 In any case, outlawry will reduce war to the level of 
 piracy and duelling, and will prevent the education of 
 another people to the blood and iron standard of "Deutsch- 
 land Uber Alles." 
 
 In connection with the foregoing obstacles and ob- 
 jections it should be borne in mind: 
 
 (a) That the international code when prepared must 
 be sumitted to each civilized nation and be by it approved. 
 As each of such nations will participate in the preparation 
 of the code general harmony may be expected. Besides 
 it is also proposed that every five years the code may be 
 amended and brought down to date, so that freshly 
 discovered points may be covered. 
 
 (b) That the abolition of the institution of war by 
 outlawry will tend to crystallize international public 
 opinion in favor of peace, and to the branding of mili- 
 tarists as criminals. And if the nations of the world find 
 that they are civilized enough to live under the reign of 
 law in th^r international dealings, the economic salvage 
 from the obsolete "court" of war will be colossal. 
 
 (c) That each nation shall disclose once a year the 
 full nature of its armament, structural and chemical, 
 new and old, and that these figures shall be verified by 
 international committees. In this way substantially 
 accurate knowledge of the preparation of each nation 
 in the line of armament will be given to the others and 
 secret preparation made abortive. 
 
 18. Outlawry of war is not intended as a panacea 
 nor does it underwrite a millenium. It seeks to apply the
 
 tried and effective methods of civilization to international 
 relations. It seeks to put a final end to the theory of 
 force and violence for the determination of right in any 
 human dispute. It does not claim that it will usher in 
 the era of brotherly love nor create a United States of 
 the World. It merely seeks to abolish the worst form of 
 violence and crime existing among men, 
 
 Salmon O. Levinson 
 Chicago, 111. . 
 
 1()4<;83
 
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 Form L-9-15»)?-3,'34 
 
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