The proposition of the Cleveland World Court Congress was practicable and feasible. It was to formulate a plan and have it ready to submit to a world conference after the present war is over, if possible with the moral support of the United States and the other American nations. Our government could well afford to support a movement of that kind after the war, but it could not afford to join an arbitration league before the war ends, which proposes to back up its demands by military force. It will be remembered that in signing The Hague Convention the American delegates made the reservation that no provision should be so construed as to require the United States of America to depart from its traditional policy of not intruding upon or interfering with, or entangling itself in the political questions or policy of internal administration of any European state. This was in accordance with the traditional policy of the United States, embodied in Washington’s Farewell Address, which was under no circumstances to interfere in the affairs of Europe. We certainly could not be a party to an agreement to lend our military forces, in combination with the military forces of other nations, to prevent one European nation from going to war with another. We might, after the war, become a party to an agreement to organize a World Court for Judicial Settlement and to contribute our contingent to the posse comitatus of such world court, on the invitation of all the powerful nations of both hemispheres. The negative part of our Monroe Doctrine is the restraining injunction of Washington’s Farewell Address. We do not propose to meddle in the affairs of Europe, and President Monroe warned the European nations that we would not permit them to meddle in the political affairs of this hemisphere or to attempt to impose their political systems upon any of the American nations. If we start in to interfere now, in accordance with the so-called “League of Peace” proposition, what becomes of our Monroe doctrine? The war in Europe will have to be fought out to some definite conclusion before any effective and compelling League of Peace is possible. As indicating the attitude of a portion of the press toward this movement we reproduce the following editorial from the Detroit _Free Press_. THE LEAGUE OF PEACE The new scheme for a League of Peace can make very little appeal to practical minds that give it real attention. Like all such plans it is largely visionary and based upon assumptions and premises which have no basis in fact because they fail to take into account the fundamentally static selfishness of human nature. The leaders of this movement strike ground only at one point and then impotently. They recognize the fact that anything done in the way of working for permanent peace must be accomplished through force and not by moral suasion.