Le Pouvoir est la manifestation supreme de la peur que l'homme fait à luimême par ses efforts pour s'en libirer. Là est peut-être le secret le plus profond et obscur de l'histoire. Ferrero, Pouvoir, p. 43.

The current discussion of a future world order has made it plain that the problem of coming international relations is of a magnitude surpassing even that of winning the war. It is not intended here to add to the rising tide of concrete plans in this field, but rather to elucidate certain proposals in the light of some basic features of the present system of international relations and, starting from a clearer picture of what is, to seek to discriminate between what is desirable and undesirable, possible and utopian. Wrong concepts of the forces underlying the present system have too often produced “peace plans” built on the sands of wishful thinking, and therefore bound to be wrecked on the rocks of reality. Disappointment caused by the failure of ill-conceived devices, in turn, is apt to produce a “realism” which ridicules any attempt to discuss international relations in terms of a possible evolution toward a more integrated stage.

Power, in modern international relations, has been the ultimate means of deciding issues and adjusting relationships among the units constituting international society. The states have regarded themselves as “sovereign” entities, not subordinated to any superior political power nor guided in their power politics by considerations of an a-political, i.e., power-alien, nature.

Within the last five years, the Supreme Court of the United States has added decisions of greater importance to the case law of religious freedom than had been accumulated in all the years since the adoption of the Bill of Rights. The importance of two of these recent decisions rests upon the subordination of freedom of action based on sectarian beliefs to the restrictions of society as a whole. In one of the two cases, the law of society was a board of education order that school children participate in the flag salute exercise on pain of expulsion from the public schools; in the other, it was peddlers' license tax ordinances. Because neither of these decisions has been accepted as a firmly rooted precedent, it will be well to examine them in the light of the history of the federally secured right of religious freedom and in the light of the immediate public reactions to them.

A considerable proportion of the early emigration to the thirteen original colonies was undoubtedly due to a desire to escape religious persecution in England and on the Continent. Those colonists, however, were as insistent that their own particular form of religion be adhered to as their oppressors had been. The story of Roger Williams, who was expelled from the colony of Massachusetts because of his non-conformist views and who established the colony of Rhode Island as a sanctuary of religious tolerance, and that of Ann Hutchinson, who also was exiled from the Bay Colony for a like reason, are monuments to the intolerance of the Puritans.

The Revenue Act of 1942 marks a new high in American finance; in fact, it reaches a new high for any country. According to official estimates, which vary somewhat, in a full year of operation the new law will increase federal tax revenues by 7 or 8 billion dollars to 24 or 26 billion dollars. This is about 50 per cent more than would have been received if the existing law had not been changed, and four times as much as the greatest tax measure of World War I. Eightelevenths of the estimated increase is to come from income taxes on individuals; two-elevenths from taxes on incomes of corporations; and nearly one-eleventh from excises on liquor, tobacco, freight charges, etc. (See Table 4).

At four o'clock on the morning of June 13, 1942, four men, in the fatigue uniforms of the German Marine Infantry, were landed in a rubber boat by two German sailors on the beach at Amagansett near the tip of Long Island, 125 miles east of New York City. They changed to civilian dress and then buried in the sand their uniforms and a supply of explosives, incendiaries, fuses, detonators, timing devices, and acids. They carried with them some $90,000 in American currency and had an elaborate list of American factories, railroad centers, bridges, power plants, water supply systems, and the like. They were accosted by an unarmed Coast Guard patrol. Alleging that they were fishermen, the four men sought the silence of the patrol first by threats to kill him and then by a bribe. He accepted $260, promptly reported the incident, and a squad of Coast Guardsmen shortly discovered the buried articles. A submarine was seen and heard off shore. The four men went to New York City.

The problem with which your Committee has been concerned since its appointment early in 1941 is the place of Congress in the American scheme of government under the emergency conditions of peace and war that have prevailed during the past decade. We have asked ourselves such questions as these:

1. What changes have taken place in the relations between Congress and the Executive? Why? Has there been in fact any surrender of power and responsibility by Congress? If so, to what extent? How can an organic and continuous relationship between Congress and the Executive be established?

The states can do little toward winning the war except to give their whole-hearted coöperation to the President's program for prosecuting the war. This coöperation is, of course, essential and of inestimable value; but the states are not engrossed in planning strategy, directing the war effort, or financing the struggle. By comparison with the federal government, they have immeasurably more time and energy available for engaging in other activities. This time and energy should be devoted to the achievement of something constructive; and the most constructive contribution which the states can make to our national economy is to devote themselves now to the task of preparing for a rôle of active participation in dealing with the serious problems with which we shall probably be confronted after the war. Even if those problems, for one reason or another, do not materialize, it is far better to be prepared for an emergency which never comes than to be unprepared for one which does come.

With national defense problems paramount in the public mind, it is not surprising that developments in rural local government during 1941 revealed, more than in normal times, the imprint of national and world conditions. State legislatures, though their sessions preceded Pearl Harbor, devoted much attention to defense problems and assigned to local governmental units an important rôle in defense organization and activities. Various steps were taken to foster coöperation in the defense effort by government at all levels; and, in view of the necessity for large national expenditures for defense purposes, additional emphasis was placed upon the need for local economy. Concurrent with the various defense-related developments was a continuation of normal peace-time efforts to improve the organization and operation of rural local government. As in former years, the events of 1941 will be summarized under the following headings: (1) areas; (2) organization and personnel; (3) functions; (4) finance; (5) optional charters and home rule; and (6) intergovernmental relations.

When Nazi planes, on the night of May 10, 1941, bombed the rooms of the Empire Parliamentary Association in Westminster Hall in the Houses of Parliament, they struck at a central institution of the British Empire. Fire destroyed most of its records. Fire-blackened, water-soaked documents, annual reports, verbatim reports of annual meetings and of sessions of the Empire Parliamentary Conference, and other documents, all bearing marks of that night, have formed the basis of this article, which incorporates also the experience gained from personal contacts with the Association in most parts of the Empire, including the addressing of meetings of members in the parliaments of each of the Oversea Dominions and attendance at meetings of the Empire Parliamentary Conference.

The relationship between the domestic political philosophy of a state and its reliability as a member of an organized world community is one of the more hotly debated issues in the present discussion of future international organization. On one side of the argument is the school of thought which holds that international organization can be safely erected only upon a basis of solidly democratic states. On the other side is the school which denies that there is any such close connection between the internal political organization of a state and its external relations. In support of their respective positions, the former school can cite the early American experience and the latter the early Swiss experience.

In these days of war, with democracy facing the greatest challenge in its history, it would be a sad mistake for anyone to assume an attitude of smug complacency. Such would be disastrous if not literally treasonable. Educators, therefore, along with labor and industry, business and agriculture, need to re-examine and revaluate their contribution to the common welfare of the community. Engaged in a war that threatens the very existence of freedom of thought, scholarship, and teaching, educational leaders have an obligation to see that the best possible use is made of one of democracy's outstanding institutions—a free educational system. If the democratic nations fail to train men in good moral and intellectual habits, fail to produce men of keen insight and critical judgment, fail to give us free minds that can join in our struggle toward a better life for all the people of the world, they will have failed in one of their most important obligations to the human race, no matter how the struggle upon the field of battle may end.