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TIME: Almanac of the 20th Century
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1994-02-27
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<text>
<title>
(1920s) Peace Efforts
</title>
<history>
TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1920s Highlights
</history>
<link 07905>
<link 07906>
<article>
<source>Time Magazine</source>
<hdr>
Peace Efforts
</hdr>
<body>
<p> [As if to show that refusal to join the League of Nations was
not to be interpreted as a refusal to espouse peace, the U.S.
made several overtures toward reducing world tensions, in
addition to contributing its expertise in the resolutions of the
various reparations crises and following a liberal international
credit policy that helped keep the gerry-rigged structure of
reparations and war debts from falling apart. The foremost
achievement in which the U.S. took part was the Washington Naval
Treaty of 1922, by which Britain, the U.S. and Japan,
respectively, set limits on themselves in the building of
capital ships (battleships and the like) in the ratio of 5-5-3
ratio to all types of naval ships was abortive, however.
</p>
<p> Undeterred, U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg, through a
lengthy correspondence with French Foreign Minister Aristide
Briand, arrived in 1928 at the ultimate peace pact: a
renunciation of war as an instrument of national policy. More
than 60 nations eventually signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact. But
it was so hedged about with reservations and exceptions, and so
devoid of effective enforcement powers or sanctions, that
although it could be said to have deterred war for eleven years,
it hardly deterred aggression at all.]
</p>
<p>(JULY 30, 1928)
</p>
<p> The small, wiry man with the careworn face was happy. He had
lived down his onetime nickname, "Nervous Nelly." Now the whole
world knew him as the author of The Multilateral treaty to
Renounce War as an Instrument of National Policy. He has just
received, last week, the unanimous promises to sign his treaty
of the following nations: Great Britain, France, Germany, Japan,
Italy, Canada, Australia, Poland, New Zealand, India, Rumania,
South Africa, Czechoslovakia, Irish Free State. Never before had
so many nations bound themselves with the U.S. to take a
momentous step.
</p>
<p> The direction of the Treaty step is what interests keen-minded
U.S. citizens. Will it lead Europe away from the League of
Nations and into a new world harmony? Will it assist Candidate
Hoover to lead his and Mr. Kellogg's party on to Victory? Why
are many European statesmen confident that the new Treaty will
entice the U.S. straight into the fold of the League of Nations?
Finally, what has one done when one has outlawed war as an
instrument of national policy?
</p>
<p> Objections to certain implications of the Treaty have been
made by various nations, notably France and Great Britain. The
objections were finally met by Secretary Kellogg with the
procedure of transmitting along with the treaty text an
explanation (six times as long as the Treaty) setting forth the
construction placed upon it by the Government of the U.S. These
explanations were accepted by other nations in lieu of and as
equivalent to specific reservations by themselves against the
Treaty. Thus the Kellogg Explanations are of equal importance
with the Treaty itself. No nation except disarmed Germany agreed
to sign until the explanations (i.e. reservations) had been
made.
</p>
<p> Secretary Kellogg explained: "There is nothing in the American
draft of an anti-war treaty which restrict or impairs in any way
the right of self-defense. That right is inherent in every
sovereign State and is implicit in every treaty."
</p>
<p> Thus it explicitly appears that the phrase "renouncing war as
an instrument of national policy" has no reference whatsoever
to defensive warfare--an important fact, when one recalls that
whenever two armies fight at least one is on the defensive.
</p>
<p> Secretary Kellogg explained: "As I have already pointed out,
there can be no question as a matter of law that violation of
a multilateral anti-war treaty through resort to war by one
party thereto would automatically release the other parties for
their obligations to the treaty breaking State..."
</p>
<p> Thus no provision whatsoever is made in the Treaty for
enforcing Peace.
</p>
<p> [Politically the Kellogg Treaty is an undoubted master stroke.
Its existence will enable Candidate Hoover and other
campaigning Republicans to point with pride to a resounding
international achievement:
</p>
<p> RENUNCIATION OF WAR
</p>
<p> Those three words have been explained until their meaning in
international law is perilously close to nil, but they are still
three words, three resounding words. They will be understood by
many U.S. voters as meaning NO MORE WAR. If they should ever
come to have that meaning to all the peoples of the World, the
explanations, reservations and quibbles of statesmen will fall
away like husks and Frank Billings Kellogg will have triumphed
indeed.]</p>
</body>
</article>
</text>