Schmalkaldic League

“ Kimmensen's hands crushed his thighs, and he stared grimly at Messerschmidt's back.
"Let's look at the record. You and I are citizens of the Freemen's League. Which is a voluntary organization. Now—who founded the League? Josef Kimmensen. Who's been the only League President we've ever had? Who is the League, by the grace of considerable spellbinding powers and an electorate which—by the very act of belonging to the League—is kept so split up that it's rare when a man gets a chance to talk things out with his neighbor? ”

“ In his annual address of 1886 he declared:
“This League is the only organized and authentic national representative of the reform sentiment. I challenge any man to show that it has in any degree, or at any time, betrayed the trust voluntarily assumed by it, with the approval of the locally organized friends of reform, of honestly and adequately representing that sentiment, and its criticisms and demands upon political parties and public men. The League has pandered to no personal ambition, to no party purpose. ”

“ He had found that morning in his telescribe receiver the Trafalgar Chambers manifesto which had been flashed to friend and foe alike. He had read it with a frown; it savoured of impertinence that it should be sent to him. He finished it with a laugh, half-contemptuous, half-annoyed. He saw that it was a stupid move unless the League had abandoned all hope of forming the League-Labour alliance ”

“ But a league would in all probability be flouted by the states as often as their interests seemed to them to make it advisable. Reverting to the analogy of our own formative period in national government, a league would be like our articles of confederation, weak and insufficient because they did not authorize the central government to coërce a recalcitrant state. As a step toward a more desirable end the articles of federation were worth while: as a similar step a league of nations might be better than nothing, but it would not lead to the end to which the world is looking. ”

“ It is at present quite impossible to work out a practical scheme according to which a more detailed organisation of the League of Nations could be realised. But so much is certain that every attempt at organising this League must start from, and must keep intact, the independence and the equality of all civilised States. It is for this reason that a Central Political Authority above the sovereign States can never be thought of. Every attempt to organise a League of Nations on the model of a Federal State is futile. ”

“ It would therefore seem to be certain that, while the memory of these losses in lives and wealth lasts, all the members of the League will faithfully carry out the obligations connected with the membership of the League into which they enter for the purpose of avoiding such a disaster as, like a bolt from the blue, fell upon mankind by the outbreak of the present war. On the other hand, I will not deny that no one can guarantee the future; that conflicts may arise which will shake the foundations of the League of Nations; that the League may fall to pieces ”

“ We need and are grateful for the help of any one who will genuinely come to its assistance. I hope we may look not only for words, but for deeds. The League needs all the support it can get in the very perilous and menacing times which are before us. I was glad to note that the Government has announced—it is one of the great test questions—that not only is it in favour of the entry of Germany into the League, but it would support the election of Germany to the Council of the League. That is an earnest of what we trust may be a real League policy from the Government of this country. ”

“ If the League is only a makeshift, a coalition into which we enter to restore order, then it is only a description of existing fact, and the idea should be treated as such. But if it is an actually prospective outcome of the settlement, the keystone of American policy, it is neither realizable nor desirable. For the programme of such a League contains no provision for dynamic national growth or for international economic justice. ”

“ You say there are three thousand members of the Socialist League in Mannhausen?”
“In Franconia,” corrected Johann. “There are several provincial branches, but of course the one here is the most numerous, and gives the lead to the others.”
“Tell me”—the King spoke with a little hesitation—“was it the League which sent you to Neustadt?”
“Oh, no; certainly not. I came here as the agent of a small secret society, which was founded in the reign of your father. The League is a public organisation, and does not undertake any measures of that kind.” ”

“ The advantages that a nation would gain in becoming a member of such a league are manifest. The risk of war would be eliminated within the League. Obviously the only things that are vital to a nation are its land and its independence. Since each nation in the League will have pledged itself to respect the territory and the sovereignty of every other, a refusal to do so will logically lead to expulsion from the League. Thus every vital question will be automatically reserved from both war and arbitration. ”

“ Until the appearance of the Paris project for the League and the peace conditions, Germany, whether national or international, was wholeheartedly a supporter of it. But now it is not too much to say that the League is moribund, not only in Germany, but in continental Europe generally, as an ideal. Its place is rapidly being taken by the ideal of an International Council on a basis of social and industrial representation, instead of that of a League on a basis of national or territorial representation. ”

“ Any little bundle of human beings, however small, illiterate, and unimportant, provided only that it was a law unto itself and waved a flag about and insisted upon a cantankerous independence, was regarded as a possible unit by the pedants who devised the League. Any body of people, however numerous, intelligent, and significant in human affairs, provided it had grouped itself into any other larger political aggregation, ceased, on the other hand, to be anything but a merged participator in the League’s affairs. ”

“ If Peel's measure should become law, then the Council will be compelled to face the question, 'What shall the League do during the three years?' It has struck me that under such circumstances we might absolve the large subscribers from all further calls, put the staff of the League on a peace footing, and merely keep alive a nominal organization to prevent any attempt to undo the good work we have effected. ”

“ Most people’s ideas of the League fall between these extremes. They want the League to be something more than an ethical court, they want a League that will act, but on the other hand they shrink from any loss of “our independence.” ”

“ America and Britain, acting in concert with an openly sympathetic Italy and a secretly assenting Belgium, would have brought such pressure to bear on France as to make it inevitable that the League should act.
The success of the League depends upon the readiness of nations great and small to discuss all their differences at the council table. But no great power has so far permitted any international question in which it has a direct and vital interest to be submitted to the League for decision. ”

“ Besides which, the society had come to the conclusion that to make, once, a complete fool of the League Assembly and Council before the world, so that its constitution would be disintegrated and its achievements would be as dust before the wind, would [Pg 223] deal the prestige of the League such a heavy blow as permanently to discredit it. To this end, after much cogitation, the society had got hold of a very brilliant and accomplished agent indeed; an agent who cared not what he did nor for what side he fought, so long as he was largely enough paid. ”

“ This is as it should be; but the world does not stand still while Germany is making reparation and being taught gradually to love her chastisers. If the League "introduces an element of progress," the sooner it gets to work the better. It is only too clear that every month which passes with the League entirely dominated by England, France, and Italy encourages and deepens the suspicion with which the League is regarded by its critics. ”

“ And whereas the League could have secured from Germany a willing acceptance of obligations that would not only have guaranteed the peace of Europe so far as the German race was concerned, but would also have made good to some extent the ruin of the last war, now it is looked upon throughout Germany as mere cynical camouflage. The German, whether nationalist or internationalist, listens to American or English preachments about the League with despair and disgust. ”

“ I think, too, it justifies my reiterated assertion that the constitution of the League is so hopeless, so childish, so diplomatically conceived and useless, that nothing but reorganisation from the ground upward can give us a proper organ for the expression of the real need and desire for unity in the world. ”

“ The revolt of the League players unquestionably grew out of the ambitious efforts of a small minority to obtain the upper hand of the National League in the control and management of its players. Added to this was the desire for self-aggrandizement which influenced a trio of the most intelligent of the players, headed by one man who was the master mind of the whole revolution scheme in connection with the Brotherhood, to its culmination in the organization of the Players' League ”

“ Among much that is doubtful in the future of the League, one thing stands out as a capital certainty. Without losing the very spirit of its being it can never become a satellite system, revolving round one dominant Power or even a dominant clique. ”

“ The League, considering the ends at which it aims, could not limit its actions to the states forming it, even though those states may be, as they are, almost all the countries of the world. It is obvious that the League, on reducing its armaments, could not see, without concern, another state extraneous to it increasing its own armament. ”

“ The obvious object of all this was to create a schism in the League, now beginning to exercise a power which might be very dangerous to men in office, to whom "certain dogmas called principles" are not often acceptable. If a portion of that body could be induced to declare for ministers and their "moderate" fixed duty, while another portion called "impracticables" demanded total repeal, the Association would be broken up or rendered powerless. The League, however, adhered to its declared constitution and justified the proceedings of its deputation to Walsall. ”

“ The Gueux league, in short, had now given to things an entirely different form. The murmurs of the people, hitherto impotent and despised, as being the cries of individuals, had, now that they were concentrated, become formidable; and had gained power, direction, and firmness through union. Every one who was rebelliously disposed now looked on himself as the member of a venerable and powerful body, and believed that by carrying his own complaints to the general stock of discontent he secured the free expression of them. To be called an important acquisition to the league flattered the vain ”

“ The aim of the League is very comprehensively stated in the first article of its constitution: ‘The aim of the League is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old society resting on class antagonisms, and the founding of a new society without classes and without private property.’
Marx and Engels were commissioned by the League to set forth its principles in a manifesto, which, as the manifesto of the communistic party, was published shortly before the Revolution of February 1848. ”

“ The League is not a dual union in any sense of the word. It is purely an educational organization. It issues no membership cards, collects no dues, and gives out no charters. To join it all that is necessary is to belong to some mass labor union, accept the principles of the League, and subscribe to its official organ, The Labor Herald. ”

“ No league has any chance of permanence which does not break wholly with the current conventions of international business; and the only hope of such a break lies in the direct selection by the people of the various countries of their own representatives on the council of the league. The league must be democratically controlled; and that with as much direct democratic power as such expedients as proportional representation and recall can secure. ”

“ While largely recruiting by the device of holding out a suggestion of some indefinite and effective political scheme, the policy of the League will be that of laisser faire, and its influence may be safely ignored. Very little of its vast income is spent in propagandism or organisation. ”

“ Taft explicitly admits and insists that the League is to be a supplement to, and in no sense a substitute for, the duty of our Nation to prepare its own strength for its own defense. He also explicitly provides that, among the various peoples who would not be admitted to the League on an equality with the others, there shall be different spheres of interest assumed by the different powers who have entered into the League. ”

“ One has been tempted at times to consider the League as an alliance of the conquerors against the conquered. The fact that Germany, Austria, and the former Russian Empire remain provisionally excluded from the League may have given a semblance of truth to this manner of thinking. ”