captured and taken to an enemy country. Germany notified the world that she would disregard all these rules and sink merchant vessels without warning, without regard to the lives of passengers of every nationality who might be on board at the time. The President of the United States was obliged to ask himself the question, shall I acquiesce in this or protest? To do the former means that I shall acknowledge the right of a belligerent to throw to the winds every rule of International Law which does not suit it. If I do, the whole fabric goes down. I have large and important claims against England which have no standing except upon International Law. If Germany may destroy these rules, soon that great work of centuries of labor of statesmen and jurists will be gone forever and we shall have gone back to the days before Grotius, when might alone made right. Then Mr. Bryan-whose advice the American people have so often found to be wrong-came himself upon the scene and told his followers that this might mean war and the thing to do was to warn every American citizen that if he exercised his right to cross the ocean on the only ships that were available when he wanted to cross, and he was murdered, it would be his own look-out. It is a long road from "I am a Roman citizen" of the great days of the Republic, and the "I am a man without a country" of the small days of the Bryan doctrine. But Americans are not now and never have been cowards and so the President was sustained and told that in his stand for law and the obligations of contract the whole country was with him.

THE DOCKET is personally very glad of this, for he hopes to visit Europe again some day and to go as an American citizen, and if Mr. Bryan's view that American citizens should not exercise their rights for fear the American nation might be called upon to defend them, was to prevail, he would expect in every country in Europe to have even the little children hiss him when he dared to show himself in the streets.

THIS CRITICAL issue which Mr. Wilson passed through safely may come upon the nation again at any time. Internationally, as well as in our national affairs, no man is safe unless law itself is safe. In a community where there are no statutes and no police and every man is a law unto himself, one must be on guard during every waking moment and when he sleeps it must be with windows and doors guarded and with arms at his side. Modern international law, though to a large extent based on usage like our common law is now, as THE DOCKET has pointed out, largely superseded by rules which the nations have agreed to either by treaty or convention. Practically, says a leading English authority writing years before the great war, the whole

civilized world has assented to its rules; and a state that openly, avowedly and of set purpose violates its provisions will dishonor its own signature and write itself down as an unscrupulous pledgebreaker. It will not find such a reputation helpful when next it wants to come to an agreement with its neighbors even if they do not rise in indignation at the moment and compel it to mend its ways. We are not speaking here of the possible excesses of troops that have got completely out of control, or of deplorable occurrences, such as the shooting of a wounded foe, which may happen in the hurly-burly of conflict without any command from responsible authorities. These things are incidents of all wars. We must look to increased self-control and improved discipline to reduce them to a minimum; and as long as they exist, reputable States are bound to punish their authors. What we have in mind is the case of a conscious and deliberate violation of the laws of war as a matter of State policy. Now that these laws are being clearly defined and solemnly accepted by all civilized States, the nation that could thus act must possess extreme unscrupulousness and enormous strength. It is just possible that now and again such a combination will occur. A ruler drunk with the consciousness of overwhelming power may venture to defy the moral sentiments of mankind, but only to discover by and by that outraged humanity avenges itself in unexpected ways. He could not ride off on the plea of military necessity; for, as Prof. Westlake has been careful to point out, we have evidence in the preamble of the Hague Conventions on the subject that military necessity has been taken. into account in framing the regulations and has not been left outside to control and limit their application. The powers distinctly say that the wording of the rules which they have drawn up has been inspired by the desire to diminish the evils of war as far as military necessities permit. Those therefore who imagine that a state is free to ignore because of the exigencies of the moment any rule to which it has subscribed its signature, are as erroneous in their reasoning as they are anarchial in their sentiments. The laws of war are made to be obeyed, not to be set aside at pleasure.

BUT THE future of International Law is dark and gloomy and the bright hope which there was two years ago of a coming time when by agreement between the nations international disputes would be no longer settled by the sword but by an International Tribunal, seems now almost impossible of realization. As it takes two to make a bargain, so there can be no real agreement between a number of individuals when one will not consent except under conditions which would make the agreement both a nullity and a farce. How will it be possible when this war is over for the nations to make an agreement when one of them holds to the doctrine that its agreement is not binding if it turns out to be against

its interest. THE DOCKET had the honor of being a guest last May at the Lake Mohonk Conference on International Arbitration. There have been assembled for the past twenty-one years, leaders in thought and action, from all parts of the United States, Canada, South America and the States of Europe. But although the meeting was held under circumstances the most discouraging, the conference reaffirmed its faith in the principle for the advancement of which it was founded. Near its close the chairman called upon the Dean of American university presidents to give his impressions of the addresses and papers that the delegates had listened to and his hopes for the future of International Law and International Arbitration. And Dr. Eliot responded in a notable though largely impromptu speech. Like all those who had attended past conferences, he said, he had experienced in August, 1914, a heavy shock to cherished hopes and confident expectations concerning the peace and progress of the race. But he had received from the speakers new aspirations and fresh encouragements. "Six hopeful things have been mentioned here. The first is the development of international law. Now, international law is not law in the ordinary meaning of that word. What we call international law is simply a series of agreements or conventions made in the course of centuries by and among the different nations of Europe and America. This body of agreements has been a slow growth, but a hopeful and promising growth. It really has little to do with what we ordinarily call law, and in particular it has no sanction behind it, and never has had. Therefore, the development of international law to which we now look forward is something different from, something better and stronger than anything which the world has known before under that name; and we may reasonably enter*tain some hope that such a better development may prove to be possible. This is one chance or hope for the future. The second is that sense of international obligation which was treated so well by Mr. Marburg in the second paper before this Conference-the increase in the sense of international obligation throughout the civilized world. You observe that both of these hopes depend upon the adoption of new or further agreements between or among nations. Another paper which interested us all was that which presented the possibility of effective co-operation among nations, and particularly co-operation among nations of the American hemisphere. That possibility again affords a new hope, not only for peace, but for great advances in commerce and trade, and in the national industries of the nations which are imagined as cooperating. But again co-operation among nations depends absolutely on the possibility of making international agreements which turn out in practice to be bindng. The fourth item on my list is the international federation or league based on common interests and common laws. That we heard of with satisfaction and anticipation of good-a federation or league among the nations of

Europe. But still again the possibility of building such a structure in the near future depends on the possibility of making among nations a binding agreement. The fifth was the League of Peace. With what pleasure we listened to the address on that subject, the possibility of creating a league of peace-comprehensive or partial, so that it be a strong union of nations leagued together to maintain peace and prevent war! Sixthly, in Professor Clark's paper we heard developed with great persuasiveness, an argument for a league of peace based on the existing alliances. That looked more possible than any other league we had heard of-a league of peace that might grow out of the present alliance between Great Britain, France, Russia and Japan. These are the six items on my list, not alike, yet resembling each other, and all dependent. upon the possibility of making among nations, many or fewbut if few, then very strong nations-a league, international agreement, or federation which will hold and prove effective.”

"This survey," President Eliot continued, "brings me to the most discouraging fact of these terrible ten months, the fact which we must face and look at squarely and resolutely; namely, that there is at least one strong nation in Europe today that says, and says in act as well as in words, 'We regard no previous agreement as binding on us in the face of an immediate military or naval necessity.' There is the most fearful fact which has been brought to the knowledge. of the world within the last ten months. You perceive instantly that none of the six proposals I have alluded to is available for the purposes of humanity, unless an agreement among nations can be made and kept without regard to changing circumstances, until a new agreement is made by the same parties to meet the changed circumstances. This doctrine that new conditions abrogate treaties and contracts is the great new evil to which the civilized world is now exposed. How can we meet it? How can we overcome it? Only by a process of education through suffering, by dire experience of the consequences of violating the sanctity of a contract, of disregarding the sense of international obligation, of failing to speak the truth and keep good faith. How long may this process of education or training be? Years, decades, generations, before the sense of international obligation and the sense of the sanctity of contract can be universal in the civilized world. Is this too despairing a statement? Must we endure the present condition in Europe, until all its nations come to realize that there can be neither safety nor peace, unless built firmly on the general sense of truth, of obligation, of the sanctity of an agreement?''

THAT historical "The" decision of the Supreme Court of Missouri will not down. Thought it is nigh ten years since it was made and though it has been laughed out of every court in the world

except one, it now and then is recalled and now and then is defended by Missouri lawyers, who feel that it is lese majeste at least to question the dictum of their highest tribunal. So the other day a Missouri circuit judge came to its defense in the columns of a Missouri law journal. He says: "Quite a storm

was once raised because the Supreme Court reversed a case where the word 'the' was omitted before 'state' in the closing of an indictment: 'Again the peace and dignity of the state.' The phrase is so common, and it is so well knwn as a part of our organic law, that it is hard to conceive why any draftsman of an indictment should seek to change it unless he imagined he knew more about what the framers of the Constitution meant than they did themselves. As changed, the final clause read: 'Against the peace and dignity of state.' What state? One or more? It might mean the entire nation. With that final 'the' omitted the term is vague and without meaning. Certainly the constitutional provision leaves nothing for guesswork. But suppose the Supreme Court would hold the changing of the form worked no harm and did not matter. The next draftsman might decide the whole thing was useless, and leave 'against the peace and dignity of the state' out of the indictment altogether.'

ONE WONDERS what manner of man it was who, in the State Constitutional Convention was able to persuade his fellow members that it was essential to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and to a Republican form of government as well, that the written charge of a crime when brought before a court by the State prosecutor should conclude with a rhetorical flourish. He was doubtless a sharp lawyer whose livelihood and reputation were founded upon his ability to wear out the other side by trickery and chicane, and who was able to boast in his community that he had defended a hundred murderers and not one of them had ever been hanged. A representative of this type of advocate half a century ago was that lawyer politician and representative in Congress for many years from a district only a few miles from where THE DOCKET writes these pages, who at the conclusion of a trial for murder, as the foreman of the jury pronounced the word "guilty," turned to his client and found him in tears. "What are you crying about, Bill?" he asked. "Oh! the jury says I must hang," replied the man. "Shut up, you fool," returned the lawyer; "why, don't you know the lawsuit has only just begun?" He had done his best by argument and oratory to persuade the twelve jurors that the prisoner was the victim of vengeance and falsehood and had failed. But all that had occurred during the long days of the trial were only to him the setting for the real battle. That was to come when the appellate court would be asked to spring the trap that he had set and to fire the mines