Most importantly, it serves today as the only existing medium for keeping Soviet Russia in contact with the rest of the world. Such a forum may already have served more usefully than we know in relieving situations that could otherwise have made trouble. Its authorized agencies are quietly and efficiently performing many valuable services for the welfare of mankind.

We are disappointed, certainly, in its inability to deal with most of the big issues of the day, but the proposals to scrap the United Nations or to take any steps that would surely bring that collapse about, seem to us gravely ill-advised.

At this point I shall read into the record the views of the United Nations Council of Philadelphia. Made up of men and women who represent different approaches toward a solution, they are unanimous in stating that their ultimate objective is toward some form of world government. But obviously any statement reasonably acceptable to energetic and differing views on detail, must paint in sweeping strokes only a broad picture. This is the statement of the Council [reading]: To promote a just world order and the welfare of mankind, and as a step toward ultimate world government, the United Nations Council of Philadelphia shall work for the immediate establishment of a federal government composed of all those countries which will subscribe to and practice a fundamental law of civil liberties and representative government based upon free elections. The proposed union may be preceded by an initial union of the European democracies and by similar unions of democracies elsewhere located in proximity to one another.

This union shall be formed within the framework of the United Nations; its constituent states retaining their membership in that organization.

The constitution of the union shall include a bill of civil and human rights, binding upon the union and upon all constituent states and the citizens thereof. There shall be a legislative body of which at least one house shall be representative of all the people and chosen by them in free elections. There shall be federal courts and a federal executive.

The union shall have the power to conduct foreign relations. It shall maintain and control all armed forces and means of mass destruction; and, as soon as practicable, grant citizenship, issue currency and regulate commerce and communication between the member states.

Nothing in the constitution shall prevent the adoption or maintenance, by any member state, of any type of economic and political system, not at variance with the provisions of paragraph 1 of this statement, which may be approved and Supported by the people thereof through their freely and duly elected representatives.

The union shall encourage and assist all states desiring to become members to meet the requirements for admission.

The United Nations Council of Philadelphia wholeheartedly supports the work and purposes of the United Nations and all its constituent agencies. It advocates the union above proposed as an imperative step, in the face of modern atomic power, toward the realization of the political ends of world order for which the United Nations was created.

It may be asked what purpose is served by such a resolution as this I have just read. Well, this is one way of letting you in Congress know how some of us at home feel about this overwhelming issue which you are debating. But otherwise there is not much we can do about it. That responsibility rests with you.

Only the Congress can take the initiative for the American people in advocating the need for better machinery for assuring peace and preserving freedom. Whether there can be built on the present United Nations foundation a structure which will assure this peace and freedom seems highly questionable. But we learn nothing by doing nothing. Certainly, any effective change in framework must deal

with the use of the veto power so that it shall not be used so obstructively as in the past.

As long as we are dealing with the representation of nations, as such, as against individuals, I suppose we ourselves will insist on some veto rights; but the area of abuse of this protection can be greatly reduced even with the present machinery. The regional grouping or union, of free states, suggested by the Philadelphia resolution would, of course, go far beyond this; it would create a central government to whom would be delegated the power of preserving freedom; it would eventually control all war-making potential through an "international police force" powerful enough to enforce peace and whose obligations would run only to that group of nations with such common democratic ideals and practices that to them could safely be delegated control of such combined strength.

As a practical matter, most of this military strength, of course, would have to be provided by a few of the nations, the bulk of it today by the United States, and until greater confidence exists around the world, the American people would undoubtedly be highly cautious as to which partners they delegated this supreme world power. There is no need to clutter up the picture of the forest with individual tree trunks; there are obviously a whole host of troublesome problems, immigration, tariffs, citizenship, currency, and the like for which some solutions must be hammered out. Our ancestors did it—we can, if we will.

At the outset it may not be found practicable to do more than group together "those countries which presently subscribe to and practice the fundamental laws of civil liberty and representative government based upon free elections." Time does not permit us to wait for the growth of international vision and the improved standard of living necessary to bring more of the countries of the world closer toward our concepts of freedom-and I shall be constantly trying to emphasize "freedom" as distinct from the narrower problem of peace.

Something must be done soon, however, to mobilize for positive action toward peace, the powerful forces of democracy and freedom which already exist. The opening discussions at the peoples' Congress of Europe at The Hague are filled with the urge for these priceless possessions and must hearten all who listen to them.

Our far-reaching program for the economic reconstruction of western Europe and China is safely launched but one can hardly imagine its success without some measure of military assistance by the United States, to assure that the climate for its development shall be a peaceful

one.

The provision by us of military equipment to strengthen European and Chinese armaments is thoroughly understandable but unhappily it repeats the timid pattern of 1941. It is a step which is highly inefficient as a military operation and if inadequate, can only lead in one direction and then maybe too late. To think that Soviet Russia will not understand our purposes and their direction in such military assurances, seems to me unrealistic. Why not then directly and unequivocably propose to merge our moral, our military and our economic strengths with these same nations whose purposes and objectives are much the same as ours? If this can be done under an article of the Charter, so much the better; the vital need is to move.

Senator Vandenberg's resolution providing for association of the United States, through constitutional process, with such regional

arrangements as are based on self-help and mutual aid, as affect its national security, is a step which should be approved for such value as it have.

may

Let us quickly make that support evident.

It would seem highly important, however, that with such a limited grouping, we make it abundantly clear that this is only a beginning, that the door is wide open, and that our final objective will not have been reached until most of the countries of the world have standards for their people which represent the expressions of freedom and democracy and are equally ready to make peace a first objective of their governments.

This may be a long-distanct ideal but it must still represent our objective hope. I am as anxious as any for the time when all our neighbors to the south shall be equal parties to the kind of government we are here considering, but it is futile, I think, to maintain that they are capable of doing their part of it today.

What seems to be so clear to me is that no other nation in the world other than the United States is now in position to take the leadership necessary to advance from where we are to the safer ground on which we want to be. It is regrettable that we are not free from the criticism that our support of United Nations. has not always been consistent. If I were a citizen of another country, I think I might have grave doubts as to what to expect from the United States on many international issues, and I add parenthetically that the attitude of the Congress toward the extension of reciprocal trade agreements, the approval of the International Trade Organization, are matters as to which I should think the rest of the world will watch us with grave

concern.

The ringing declarations of active purpose from the Congress on the reconstruction of Europe and Asia have already removed many of those doubts and given new hope to a troubled Europe hungry for our leadership. But it must be a leadership of a new pattern where alliances and treaties and self-seeking sovereignties give way to the pooling of resources for a joint action which shall be powerful enough morally as well as physically, to guarantee peace.

No private person is wise enough to presume to say to this committee what precise steps should be taken. As a citizen I can only urge that you resolutely face the issues and, like those ancestors of ours who sat in Philadelphia in 1787, consider ways and means to develop a "civil bible" for freedom-loving peoples everywhere whose spiritual strength shall safely mobilize military strength for world peace. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. CHIPERFIELD (presiding). Thank you, Mr. Batt, for your very constructive statement.

Mr. Vorys.

Mr. VORYS. Mr. Batt, this certainly is a very constructive statement. There is much of it with which we all agree.

What our committee is perplexed about is this, that we have many summaries, and brilliant summaries, of the problem with which we are now becoming very familiar. We have many criticisms of suggestions made by others. However, we are a little weak on concrete suggestions as to what this committee can do about it. I would therefore like to raise a question about your statement:

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You said this [reading]:

Only the Congress can take the initiative for the American people in advocating the need for better machinery for assuring peace and preserving freedom.

Every time we study this thing we find that in our foreign relations only the Executive can take the initiative for the American people in advocating the need for better machinery, under the United Nations Charter and our existing legislation, and our Executive is not taking such initiative.

Where do you get the idea that "only the Congress can take the initiative" in this matter?

Mr. BATT. It would seem to me, Mr. Vorys, as a layman, that the attitude of the State Department, which, of course, is a part of the executive, has materially changed during the last weeks that this body has been holding its hearings.

Mr. VORYS. If by merely holding these hearings we can bring encouragement and turpentine and so forth, where they will be helpful, that is what we are doing. However, every resolution that is pending here so far starts off about like this [reading]:

It is the sense of the Congress that the President should

and so forth.

That is a recognition of the peculiarly responsible and powerful position that the Executive has in our constitutional set-up.

Mr. BATT. The executive, as you know better than I do, is charged with the conduct of relations with foreign governments. That we have had in our Constitution from the very beginning. I have long felt that our system of government was lamentably weak in its ability to deal with international questions.

It seems to me today that the executive cannot safely proceed with negotiations of a major character, with foreign nations, without the knowledge of the backing of the Congress, and of course similarly I would consider that the Congress would think twice about moving with a concurrent resolution which it had not threshed out with the executive as far as practicable.

Mr. VORYS. Now, here, in this broad, world-wide picture, there are some homely local problems that face the Congress and the people the Congress represents. Under our United Nations Participation Act, the delegates to the Assembly are to act on instructions from the President.

Perhaps that is merely a restatement of the constitutional requirement, anyhow. I am not sure on that.

At the founding of the United Nations it was the practice of the then President to appoint, although he did not have to, representatives from the Congress, to be members of the delegation. That practice has been abandoned. We therefore in Congress know that the Assembly of the United Nations insofar as American representation is concerned, is representative of only the President.

We know, at least so far as these resolutions are concerned, they reflect the idea that Congress cannot take the initiative in changing the Charter of the United Nations, or getting up an international meeting to consider this section 51 organizations or anything else. All we can do is to ask the President to take the initiative.

I am pointing out what has been the viewpoint of the Congress and of this committee, as shown by resolutions introduced by its members,

not to say that it is right but to come back again to you and say, "In what way can this committee take the initiative for the American people in advocating a need for better machinery for assuring peace and preserving freedom"?

Mr. BATT. Mr. Vorys, I followed, as you may remember, the development of the European recovery program in this Congress. Mr. VORYS. You were a very helpful witness.

Mr. BATT. It came to this body and the other one in a vastly different fashion from which it came out and it came out with the complete support of the executive arm of the Government, if I understand the picture correctly.

I feel guilty, perhaps, in taking the time of a committee, whose time is as precious as yours is, when I find it difficult to come up with cleancut answers. I have not been actively identified with the World Federalists. I have not been actively identified with Clarence Streit, or my townsman, Justice Roberts, in the sense of advocating a special line. I have tried to be familiar with their points of view.

As far as I can judge, both those points of view have been moderated in certain rather essential degrees, at least as to timing, in the last few months.

I have one clear view. I want to propose nothing which will put the Russions and the nations dominated by them, in such a position in the United Nations that they are forced to get out.

It seems to me, knowing the Russians as I do, that it serves a purpose which we must preserve, to have a place where they sit and talk. I have had very considerable concern about certain approaches toward the modification of the United Nations, because it seemed to me that they threatened, if they were at all prompt in their operation, to produce that sort of a schism in the United Nations itself; therefore I have been very hesitant in coming to a conclusion that it is wise to present to the United Nations a request for any considerable changes which could in any way either give the Russians an opportunity of getting out of it or giving the impression of forcing them out.

What, then, does one do? I have heard this expression used here this morning: "A club within a club."

I would expect that could be properly applied to the program of my friend Justice Roberts but that requires a good deal of qualification. What does one mean by a club within a club?

Now, if it is like some of the clubs at some of the universities I know, where you can get in only if your father has so many million dollars-if the restrictions are of that kind-snooty, brass-hat restrictions-I do not like that expression as descriptive of the approach I am making here. But I can conceive of a grouping of nations that are presently within the United Nations and who intend to stay in the United Nations, who, because they have similar points of view and similar democratic governments, propose to try to go further than is practicable within the present framework of operation of the United Nations.

Nor do I lay primary emphasis on that as a military venture. I have the conviction that that is a dangerous emphasis, to put predominant. It is my conviction that Communists in Europe are moving into a vacuum created by poor standards of living for their people, lack of opportunities for their people, and so on and so on; so that