opinion, the position of the Delegation should be determined by a majority vote. The confidence of the Chairman of the Delegation, expressed in its first meeting when he stated his conviction "that while free in pursuing our personal views and convictions, we shall be able to work as one team", was abundantly justified. In fact, the United States Delegation was successful in achieving throughout its long and difficult labors a spirit of cooperation and a degree of unanimity which were remarked by all who were familiar with its work.

Altogether, the preparation for the United Nations Conference on International Organization was planned, organized and executed so as to bring to bear upon the unresolved problem of the organization of the world for peace the experience and resources of the entire Government and people. In the actual labor of the Conference as well as in the preparation which preceded it, the American press, radio and motion pictures played an important part. Once the nation was committeed, through the publication of the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals, to a wholly democratic procedure in the discussion of the question of world organization, it was essential that the people should be fully informed of the problem before them and of the proposals presented for its solution. Only thus was it possible to carry through a program of democratic collaboration to which Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Cordell Hull had given inspiring leadership worthy of the best traditions of this nation.

NAME

The United Nations was the title proposed in the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals for the general international organization. This title, suggested by President Roosevelt, was taken from the Declaration of January 1, 1942, which formally brought the United Nations into being. By the time the San Francisco Conference opened, fortyseven nations had signed this Declaration.

The United Nations in their Declaration affirmed that complete victory over the common enemies was essential to the defense of life, liberty, independence, and religious freedom, and the preservation of human rights and justice. To achieve this victory, each signatory pledged its full resources in the war and agreed not to make a separate armistice or peace. The signatories of the Declaration also subscribed to the common long term program of purposes and principles embodied in the Atlantic Charter, the central goal of which is the establishment of a peace "which will afford assurance that all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want". Thus, the name, the United Nations, has been associated from the beginning with complete victory over the common enemies and the establishment of future peace and security.

Some delegations at the San Francisco Conference were not at first entirely satisfied with the United Nations as a title for the proposed organization. They felt that the name of a group of states bound together in wartime alliance was not appropriate for an international organization to maintain future peace and security, an organization which would in time include some of the states which have been or are now enemies of the United Nations. It was also felt it would be difficult to find an equivalent in certain languages.

In the discussions at San Francisco the United States Delegation held firmly to the title proposed in the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals. The Delegation took the position that the war had been successfully prosecuted under the banner of the United Nations; that good fortune attaches to this name; and that we should go forward under it to realize our dreams of the peace planned by the President who

conceived the phrase. Other delegations also supported the title on the ground that we of the United Nations intend to stand together in peace for the same principles we fought for together in war. Furthermore, they said, the name will be no less appropriate in the future when vanquished nations are considered for membership, since they will be obliged to accept United Nations standards of conduct before they can be admitted. Numerous delegations, moreover, supported the choice of the title, the United Nations, as a tribute to its originator. Acting upon the overwhelming sentiment in favor of that name, the Conference Committee which considered this subject adopted it unanimously and by acclamation.

PREAMBLE

The Preamble introduces the Charter. It seeks to strike the keynotes of the Organization. In general language it expresses the common intentions, the common ideals which brought the United Nations together in conference at San Francisco and inspired their work.

No preamble was drafted at Dumbarton Oaks. The participating nations felt that it was not feasible to prepare a preamble until after the provisions of the Charter for the general international organization were generally agreed upon with the other nations concerned. It was felt that a meaningful preamble expressing the real intentions and controlling motives that brought all the peoples of the United Nations together to establish the Organization could emerge only from discussions among representatives of those nations.

At the beginning of the San Francisco Conference Field Marshal Smuts of South Africa proposed that there should be a preamble to the Charter and submitted a draft which is the basis of the text finally adopted. The draft included a declaration of human rights and of the common faith which sustained the peoples of the United Nations in their bitter and prolonged struggle for the vindication of those rights and of that faith. It expressed the thought that our war had been for the eternal values which sustain the spirit of men and that we should affirm our faith not only as our high consideration and guiding spirit in the war but also as our objective for the future.

The opening words of the Preamble, and therefore of the Charter, are modelled upon the opening words of the Constitution of the United States "We the peoples of the United Nations". The Delegation of the United States proposed these words which in our history express the democratic basis on which government is founded. These words also express our concern for the welfare of the peoples of the world and our confidence that they are "coming into their own". Although no other treaty among nations had thus sought to speak for the peoples of the world instead of merely for their governments, the proposal of the United States Delegation was received with general satisfaction. This was in a very real sense a peoples' conference but the peoples of the world act through

governments and the Preamble closes with the statement that the respective governments, through their representatives assembled in San Francisco, have agreed to this Charter.

The committee of the Conference charged with the formulation of the Preamble and with the chapters stating the Purposes and the Principles of the United Nations, found some difficulty in distributing among these three sections of the Charter the basic ideas upon which it is founded. The Preamble is an integral part of the Charter but the obligations of the Members are to be found in other portions of the text. Although the legal force to be attributed to a preamble of a legal instrument differs in different systems of law, the Conference did not doubt that the statements expressed in the Preamble constitute valid evidence on the basis of which the Charter may hereafter be interpreted.

The words of the Preamble need no special analysis here. The thoughts behind them—from the appeal to save the future from the scourge of war, through references to respect for obligations arising from treaties, on to the establishment of institutions to translate ideals into realities—all these run through and inspire the succeeding chapters of the Charter.