CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT MAKING WAR LEGALLY IMPOSSIBLE SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1930 UNITED STATES SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY, Washington, D. C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10.15 o'clock a. m., in room 212, Senate Office Building, Senator Frederick H. Gillett, Chairman, presiding. Present: Senators Gillett (chairman) and Dill. Senator GILLETT. This is a hearing on Senate Joint Resolution 45, before a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee. One of the members of the subcommittee is out of the city, but the other will be here presently. Perhaps I should say it is understood the hearing was to last for a couple of hours, and two years ago this same committee had charge of it, and you earned the great gratitude and admiration of the committee for the prompt and efficient way in which you handled it, and we are hoping it will be repeated to-day. Miss Byrns, you had charge at that time. STATEMENT OF MISS ELINOR BYRNS, REPRESENTING THE WOMEN'S PEACE UNION Miss BYRNS. Mr. Chairman, we are most grateful to you. When I asked you for this hearing for the Women's Peace Union, I said we would be brief, and we intend to keep that promise, although instead of one organization in favor of this amendment, as at our first hearing three years ago, we now have seven organizations represented to-day in favor of the amendment. Therefore our remarks will be in the nature of summaries, rather than speeches. We have come to urge an immediate, favorable report of Senate Joint Resolution 45. This resolution provides for an amendment to the Constitution which will make war and other armed undertakings legally impossible for the United States. I will now ask Caroline Lexow Babcock to read the amendment. Mrs. BABCOCK (reading): Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constituiton, which shall be valid, 1 to all intents and purposes, as part of the Constitution when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States: "ARTICLE "SECTION 1. War for any purpose shall be illegal, and neither the United States nor any State, Territory, association, or person subject to its jurisdiction shall prepare for, declare, engage in, or carry on war or other armed conflict, expedition, invasion, or undertaking within or without the United States, nor shall any funds be raised, appropriated, or expended for such purpose. "SEC. 2. All provisions of the Constitution and of the articles in addition thereto and amendment thereof which are in conflict with or inconsistent with this article are hereby rendered null and void and of no effect. "SEC. 3. The Congress shall have power to enact appropriate legislation to give effect to this article." Miss BYRNS. Senator Dill, and Senator Frazier, we apologize to you for beginning before you came in. We understood the time to be 10.30, but Senator Gillett understood it to be 10, so we compromised by beginning at 10.15. We expect Senator Frazier to make a very brief statement this morning, but I am going to ask him if he will be so good as to make it after the other speakers come, instead of now. Mrs. Babcock has read the resolution. I think that our intention is clear. We demand the complete repudiation by the United States of all war, offensive or defensive, international or civil, together with immediate and total disarmament. Our reason is that all war is wrong, wicked, a crime against society, and incredibly silly; therefore, we can not take part in war or permit our country to take part in war. War is the slaughter of human beings, temporarily regarded as enemies, on as large a scale as possible. All war involves killing and maiming, hating and lying, violent coercion of body and soul. From these evils war can not be freed. They are of its essence. The nature of war is always the same no matter what the causes of any given war have been, no matter what results it produces, no matter what provocation any participant may have had. Because of what war intrinsically is we repudiate war. Men and women in many countries have sought a compromise with Governments, with their tongues in their cheeks, have talked of compromises. But there is no compromise. War can not be reformed or controlled. It can not be codified into common sense, disciplined into decency, or negotiated into nullity. Therefore, we must say: "War shall not be. We will not tolerate it; and we will take the consequences." That is what we have come here to say. We believe that before we can abolish war we must take the legal sanction from war. This can be done only by an amendment to the Constitution. In 1927 at the first hearing on this proposed amendment, I said, "The United States can not in good faith join with other nations to outlaw war until its own Constitution is amended. The United States can not hope to induce other nations to disarm and repudiate war while its own fundamental law provides for and sanctions war." I will ask Ruth Edgerton, of Iowa, to read the general pact, and also a definition of the word "renounce" as given in Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary. Miss EDGERTON. I read from the general pact for the renunciation of war, Article 1: The high contracting parties solemnly declare, in the names of their respective people, that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another. ART. 2. The high contracting parties agree that the settlement or solution of all disputes or conflicts of whatever nature or of whatever origin they may be, which may arise among them, shall never be sought except by pacific means. The definition of "renounce," from Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary, is as follows: 1. To refuse to acknowledge longer; disown, repudiate. 2. To give up explicitly; abrogate; also, to abjure; forswear. 3. To abandon the use or pursuit of. Miss BYRNS. We leave it to this committee to decide whether the United States has renounced war. It seems to us that it has not renounced even offensive war, because the Constitution still permits the Government to prepare for, declare, or carry on war, with no restriction as to the nature or the purpose of the warfare. The pact renounces, but the Constitution permits. The pact, because it is a treaty made under the authority of the United States, is the supreme law of the land. The Constitution is the supreme law of the land. Any act of Congress, made in pursuance of the Constitution is also the supreme law of the land, and any act of Congress made subsequently to the pact will control as against the pact, in so far as the two are in conflict. I think there is no question about that, so far as our own domestic law is concerned. Senator DILL. May I interrupt? Miss BYRNS. Certainly. Senator DILL. The pact does not, of course, say anything about preparation for defense or anything of that kind. It is simply offensive war. Miss BYRNS. Pardon me. It nowhere says "offensive war." Miss BYRNS. No. Senator DILL. Well, "make war." Miss BYRNS. It renounces war as an instrument of national policy. Senator DILL. I say that does not renounce a defensive war. Miss BYRNS. I think there is quite a little difference of opinion here, which probably one of our speakers is to take up. I will say only that we have a letter from the State Department in which the State Department says there is no restriction whatever on the pact, that defensive war is not mentioned, offensive war is not mentioned; and I perhaps should not say it here, but the State Department says that the opinion of the Foreign Relations Committee which was given at the time the pact was passed is in no way binding on the pact. There may at some future day be some conflict between the Foreign Relations Committee and the State Department. Senator DILL. I only mention it because I think there is not a conflict between that and the Constitution, but I am under no illusions about the word "defensive war," because every nation finds an excuse for a war, and uses the matter of self-defense when it begins. I recognize that, but I do not think there is a conflict between that treaty and the Constitution. Miss BYRNS. You do not claim that the pact has repealed the war powers in the Consti ution? Senator DILL. No. But I do not think it is in conflict. Miss BYRNS. The war powers are still there, and Congress could prepare for war or declare war without any restrictions, so it would then be very hard to know how the pact could be made effective. I should think what you mean is that the preparation for war now being made could not be said to be in conflict with the pact, because we don't know whether it is ever going to be used. Is that what you mean? Senator DILL. No; I don't mean that. But I mean there is nothing in the pact that is in conflict with the nation's preparation for defense. Miss BYRNS. That, I think, is going to be taken up by one of the speakers, and I don't want to take time now to go into it further. Senator DILL. I only mention it because the argument was suggested there was a conflict, and we ought to deal with this provision of the constitution in order to be in conformity with the pact. Miss BYRNS. What we mean to bring out is it is hard to see how you can renounce war and prepare for it at the same time. Senator DILL. Of course, we live in a practical world. Miss BYRNS. I think that one of the purposes of the hearing, is to ask how you can renounce war and prepare for it at the same time. We would like to see this legal muddle, as I would call it, cleared up, and we contend the only practical way to clear it up and solve this difficulty is this proposed amendment to the Constitution, which will make war legally impossible. In that case, the Constitution and the pact will be in entire harmony, and Congress will no longer have the power to prepare for war, declare war, or carry on war. In other words we do not wish it to be possible for this war power to be used at any time, as it still may be, in spite of the pact. That is true, isn't it? Senator DILL. Yes. Miss BYRNS. This proposed amendment which we first brought to Washington in 1924, and which Senator Frazier first introduced in 1926, seems to us to be the only method for the complete outlawry of war by the United States. It provides for the word and the deed, instead of the word contradicted by the deed. The enactment of this amendment will mean that we intend to hold life sacred, that we will no longer make human sacrifice to the myth of self-defense. The enactment of the amendment will mean that we have substituted nonresistance or nonviolent resistance for armed resistance; that we have made war legally impossible for ourselves regardless of what other nations may do; because we know that violence and bloodshed are always wrong in principle, disastrous in practice. I have spoken so far only for myself and for the Women's Peace Union. I now ask Senator Frazier to speak on this amendment. STATEMENT OF THE HON. LYNN J. FRAZIER, SENATOR, NORTH DAKOTA Senator FRAZIER. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, it is not my purpose to take up any time in this hearing. The purpose of the resolution when first introduced, I think, might well be said to have been educational, for the purpose of bringing to the people the fact that our Constitution, which gives Congress the right to declare war, is in that respect, to say the least, rather out of date. With modern appliances of war, and modern so-called scientific warfare, many changes in the whole situation have been made. This modern scientific warfare has practically made war for defense impossible. There is no really worth-while defense under the present system of warfare. These witnesses who are here to-day, will cover the whole subject. I want to state, however, that I have been more than surprised at the amount of sentiment that I have found in favor of this resolution, not only from the Women's Peace Union, and not only among women's organizations in general throughout the country, but by the people in general, there has been a great deal of sentiment evidenced for this resolution. We talk about the peace pact and the renunciation of war, and at the same time we prepare for war with the largest Navy that we have ever had, the largest army we have ever had in peace times, and that, in view of the fact that with the bombing systems they have perfected in preparation for the so-called scientific war, that the great battleships are of practically no benefit at all and could be sunk in less time than it takes to tell it by these bombing planes. Yet we continue to build battleships and prepare for war, spending immense amounts of money which it seems to me might a great deal better be spent for more useful purposes and for the benefit of the people at the present time. With millions of men and women out of employment in this Nation today, we are continuing to spend money for preparation for war that, in my estimation, is worse than wasted, and it gives the rest of the world the opinion, it seems to me, that we did not mean what we said in the adoption of the Kellogg peace pact. I will take no more time, Mr. Chairman. I am interested in hearing these people develop their case. The time is very short, and I hope this hearing can go through with as little interruption as possible so that it may be concluded on time. Miss BYRNS: Our next speaker is Mrs. Babcock, whose subject is The Need for Action. STATEMENT OF CAROLINE LEXOW BABCOCK, NEW YORK CITY, REPRESENTING THE WOMEN'S PEACE UNION Mrs. BABCOCK. Mr. Chairman, Senator Dill, Senator Frazier, on you, gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee, rests a grave and terrible responsibility. You and you alone can take the United States the next step on the road, which leads away from the next war, the war that is inevitable unless you act. This is no academic question that we bring to you this morning. We call for immediate action. We are not here to vent our emotions against war; we are here to get rid of war. We wish to substitute deeds for words; actions for vague desires and pious hopes. We come to this committee because it occupies the key peace position in the Senate, in the United States, in the world. Since only by constitutional amendment can we make war for the United States legally impossible and since constitutional amendments must be referred to your committee, no proposal to get rid of war can be submitted to the people without your sanction; no opportunity for the United States to lead the world in this glorious act of friendship and decency can be embraced without your approval. To this extent, |