This Charter fails to provide as a definite, named objective the development of a modern technique of equitized distribution of wealth-not money, but real wealth, consisting of goods and servicesamong all men and all nations, the lack of which technique is the major cause of all wars and other forms of crime. The Charter also fails to strengthen the legitimate rights of private property by failing to provide for public ownership and control of all public propertyall property essential to public welfare and progress, and supported principally by public patronage. The gang back of this Charter wants to continue to fatten at the expense of the people by expanding private ownership and control of public property, world resources. Finally, there are private understandings between individuals running all the way from somewhere in the Atlantic through Tehran and Yalta to Berlin and beyond, which appear nowhere in this Charter but which will have a controlling influence upon its operation. At the San Francisco Conference there was bitter discussion and controversy concerning the veto power to stop discussion, investigation, action on aggressions by the Big Five and their satellite states. search this Charter for any mention of veto power. No; this is not an open Charter, openly arrived at, but a mess of entangling alliance with what we do now know and no one dare tell us fully, the whole putrid mess fancied up with fair words to catch public support without public knowledge of the contents. But In the second place, this Charter is both immediately and prospectively unconstitutional, in that it violates both the letter and the spirit of our Federal Constitution. Chapter VIII, article 43, paragraphs 1, 2, and 3, propose immediate violation of article I, section 8, paragraphs 11, 12, and 13 of our Federation Constitution concerning the raising, maintenance, and use of armed forces. Chapter XIV, article 94, paragraph 1, proposes immediate violation of article III, section 2 of our Federal Constitution regarding jurisdiction of the United States Supreme Court over all foreign disputes of this Nation. Chapter XVI, article 104, paragraph 1, and article 105, paragraphs 1, 2, and 3, propose immediate violation of article I, II, and III of our Federal Constitution regarding supremacy of American sovereignty throughout our national domain. Chapter IV, article 17, paragraph 2, proposes immediate violation of article I, section 7, paragraph 1 of our Federal Constitution regarding control of taxation by Congress. All of the above-mentioned Charter provisions incidentally violate article V of our Federal Constitution by proposing an unconstitutional method of amending our Constitution. This Charter is manifestly incomplete in its coverage, but the necessary implication of these proposed present violations is that with. growth of the Charter there will be proposed many more similar violations of the exact letter of our Constitution. All the afore-mentioned violations are of the letter of our Constitution but the spirit of the Constitution may also be violated and this Charter does not fail to do so. The spirit of our Constitution consists of those basic axioms of successful government which are so obvious and so well tested by past experience that they are taken for granted and need not be stated in so many words since they are implicit to the very form of the Federal Constitution. This Charter ignores the experience of all nations, through all time, that the governmental functions of legislation, administration, and adjudication are most efficiently and safely performed by separate and distinct bodies with some mutual control over each other, balanced powers which cannot run wild on their own initiative. But chapter V, article 23, paragraph 1 of this Charter proposes to combine these three functions in a single small, all-powerful body-the Security Council. This Charter ignores our constitutional provision for election, by the people, of legislative and executive representatives. Instead of that, chapter V, article 23, paragraph 1; chapter X, article 61, paragraph 1; chapter XIII, article 86, paragraph 1; chapter XV, article 97, paragraph 1; and article 101, paragraph 1; while using the word "elected" refer to a purely appointive operation-and intention. There is not one word in this Charter concerning public election of any officer of this organization. It envisions complete rule from the top down. It proposes to prostitute American ideals to those of the least democratic member of the Organization. So help me, it smells to high heaven. This Charter omits all reference to minimum qualifications for office holding under itself. But it does provide for possible life tenure of office by five members of the Security Council. This might easily be developed into a reigning quintarchy and might even be made into an hereditary ruling "nobility" of superkings in coming years. I thought we had gotten rid of all that putrid stuff when we freed ourselves from British rule and British "love of lords" in 1783 and 1815. This provision occurs in chapter V, article 23, paragraph 1 of the Charter and violates article 1, section 9, paragraph 8, of our Constitution. Chapter I, article 2, paragraph 2, proposes taxation and obligation without representation when it provides to the American people no direct voice in election of officers under the Charter. In the third place, this Charter is thoroughly un-American. That is not at all surprising since it was sponsored and wet-nursed by a man whose whole life has been spent in the service of Great Britain in this country. This Charter ignores the fact that the world is ever-increasingly dynamic and diverse and that only so can it progress toward ever higher perfection. The whole Charter aims at establishing a static world state under the complete control of a small, self-perpetuating clique of ultraconservatives and tories who will oppose all progress except that which involves no change whatever. This Charter ignores the Franklin doctrine that only divine leadership is infallible, for it proposes that world control be placed in the hands of five men. This Charter ignores the Jefferson doctrine that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. The kind of consent of the governed which this Charter proposes is best described by the injunction, "Take it and like it or else." The governed have no direct voice in world control under this Charter. This Charter not only omits all reference to the Monroe Doctrine against empire building, but its chapter VII, article 42, paragraph 1, proposes immediate violation of that doctrine which has been our national bulwark for over a hundred years. Moreover, the Charter places its blessing upon empire building by providing a new empirebuilding technique under the guise of trusteeships-chapters XI, XII, and XIII-and by expanding the empire-building idea under the name of regional alliances-chapter VIII-a proposal first introduced by the outstanding American statesman, Ely Culbertson. This Charter ignores every problem for which it knows no solution, or for which it wishes no solution. That is only natural, but nevertheless it supplies a competent measure of the ignorance and ill intentions of its sponsors and supporters. The This Charter ignores American experience that a strong federation, under a strong constitution, can succeed greatly where a weak confederation, under weak Articles of Confederation has failed. weak League of Nations and its weak Covenant having failed dismally, this weaker Charter proposes an even weaker organization than the defunct League of Nations. If that be logic, make mine a pineapple sundae instead. This Charter tries to hide the fact that it proposes to reduce the United States to the status of a British Dominion, but the provisions of the Charter reveal this fact, thinly disguised. Chapter IV, article 18, paragraph 1, provides that the British Empire shall have six votes in the General Assembly to one vote for the United States. Chapter V, article 27, paragraph 1, provides for the possibility of six votes for the British Empire in the Security Council to one vote for the United States. If this Charter be finally adopted, while we are floating in a cloud of hope alone, without form or substance of fact, Great Britain can claim truly that at long last it has won the American Revolution in effect, no matter what the histories may claim. This is the crowning insult. In two world wars we have intervened and poured out our wealth and our blood and tears to rescue Britain's hide from the results of its own blundering stupidity, and the reward we get is repudiation of the British war debt from World War I, and now we are rewarded by being granted the status of a British Dominion and the privilege of associating on terms very little short of full equality with the other British Dominions. Throughout this Charter there are proposed all sorts of new and untried methods for accomplishing standard results for which there are tried and proven methods available. In the fourth place, this Charter is completely undemocratic: It commits every possible attack upon democracy; it omits every essential principle of democratic government. This Charter thumbs its nose at the Jefferson doctrine that governments derive their just powers from the consent of governed. It then proceeds to thumb its ears at the Lincoln definition of democracy as "government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people.' Instead of these lofty ideals, it proposes to concentrate, world power in the hands of five men possibly appointed for life, 'with a figurehead "President of the World" in the person of an appointive Secretary General (XV-97-1). This Charter proposes an international spoils system by making the entire secretariat appointive without suitable standards of qualification, thus tending toward a caste system of government service, rather than a merit system. · This Charter talks at length about security but proposes that we buy security with our fundamental liberty. It proposes to establish security through slavery of the peoples of earth-through complete and intensive and permanent regimentation under a ruling quintocracy, rather than by simultaneous development of full security, liberty, and opportunity for all men and all nations. This Charter omits all reference to the need for taking the peoples of earth into the drafting of peace terms by holding unassembled peace conventions in all the nations of earth, as suggested in the pamphlet, Declaration of Interdependence which is submitted herewith as part of this testimony against the Charter. This Charter omits all reference to the need for changing representation from its present mandatory form to a purely advisory function. It makes no effort to implement such change by providing for development and installation of an electromechanical apparatus and system for quick, easy, accurate, and complete recording and summating of public opinion. Such equipment would facilitate full, direct, continuous control of government by the whole people, aided by advice of expert representatives, and guided by God through prayer. Only through such practice in self-government can the peoples of earth grow toward perfection in that art. This Charter contains no bill of rights for all men and all nations. similar to that which we found necessary in our Federal Constitution. Without such a bill of rights in a world constitution the peoples and nations of earth are not insured of any constitutional rights, except the right to grin and bear it. That is all the rights that the perpetrators of this Charter wished to grant to men and nations. Finally, this Charter is not in any sense a Charter for world security or for world peace. It is a Charter for perpetuation of war. This Charter ignores the Lincoln doctrine concerning all-inclusive unity with no possibility for competing sovereignties, by recognizing nonmembership by abstention (ch. II, art. 4, par. 1), by exclusion (ch. II, art. 4, par. 1), by suspension (ch. II, art. 5, par. 1), and by expulsion (ch. II, art. 6, par. 1). It thus shows lack of understanding that actually we are all citizens of one world and inevitably interdependent, that the world can best be governed as a unit by consent of all its peoples and under their full control. This Charter proposes to embalm the hates of World War II in a supposedly peace instrument, thus tending to preserve these hates and thus defeat the alleged primary purpose of the instrument (ch. VIII, art. 53, par. 2 and ch. XVII, art. 107, par. 1). This Charter contains no vision of permanent world peace and the vastly higher order of civilization which will become possible with the abolition of all civic and economic war through a world state implemented to remove all the causes of such war through an adequate world constitution. Instead it contemplates and implements a continuance of civic and economic struggle for special commercial advantage and for control of strategic resources, with the five big nations holding all the cards and the smaller nations and the people of earth holding the bag. This Charter shows no grasp of the importance for world peace of providing a rational system of all-embracing and nonconflicting administrative departments. Its proposal of an economic and social council and of various other unnamed special agencies, represents a blind groping after some but with nothing particular and definite in mind like a child crying for something and not knowing what it is crying for. This Charter implies the need for a code of international law, but, while providing for an international court of justice, it offers no such code of international law for international approval or revision. It is well known that at present international law consists of what each nation considers to be its special advantage or its power to enforce nationally. This Charter omits all reference to the need for a universal second language based upon the American or dynamic brand of English, with additions from all the major languages, and designed to supplement not supplant the national languages. This Charter omits all reference to the need for establishing a world radio university and unification of world educational facilities by which to make available gratis to all the peoples of earth continuous opportunity for higher education to the full limit of their desires and abilities, throughout their lives. This Charter omits all reference to the splendid constructive competition of peace which can replace the destructive competition of war and fill the world with tremendous adventure, interest, eventfullness. and progress in the exploration of interstellar space, in the development of telepathy, in the scientific investigation and revelation of spiritual immortality and recurrent physical existence, and in other future advances far beyond even these wonders. This Charter proposes that we continue to retreat into the future with our eyes and minds and hearts fixed longingly upon the past rather than turn our faces resolutely and hopefully toward future splendors beyond all imagination as we advance into the Kingdom of God on earth and an endless ETERNITY Man came from God, to God again is bound Shall fall each barrier of race and creed, In which the spark of God's own spirit burns, Beside His Throne for which its spirit yearns. -Reid Davies |