of the delegates, both American and European, at the San Francisco Conference. Fortunately, logic prevailed. Everything was made clear. There was incorporated into the charter of the United Nations a principle regulating the collaboration between our hemisphere and the rest of the world.

The Inter-American System, far from opposing the international system, placed itself loyally at the disposition of the latter, in order to share with it the task of mainaining order in the world. The World Organization recognized this in article 52 of the charter, which reads in part: Nothing in the present Charter precludes he existence of regional arrangements or gencies for dealing with such matters relating to the maintenance of internaional peace and security as are approprite for regional action. . . ." Later, the Director General of the Pan American

Union, interpreting the Charter in his Report on the Action of the Conference [of San Francisco] on Regional Arrangements, submitted to the Governing Board of the Pan American Union, reached the following conclusions:

1. Upon Regional Agencies or Arrangements rests the primary responsibility to seek a pacific settlement of disputes before they are referred to the Security Council. In fact, the Security Council is expected to encourage the solution of local disputes through regional arrangements or by regional agencies, either on the initiative of the States concerned or by reference from the Council. . . .

3. The right of any group of nations to enter into agreements for self-defense is recognized. Consequently, the Act of Chapultepec, or the treaty that may be concluded to convert this wartime measure into a peacetime agreement, is entirely in harmony with the World Charter.

In case the peace of the hemisphere is threatened, the Inter-American System will immediately begin to function. At

the same time, the matter will be taken up with the Security Council, in order that it may decide if the instruments of the Inter-American System are sufficient to solve the dispute; or if, by reason of a threat to world peace, the Security Council considers that the World Organization should also intervene. There is no conflict of jurisdictions, no rivalry. In all cases there will be mutual aid and close collaboration.

Finally, to hold that if we are Pan Americans we cannot be internationals, appears to me as illogical as to maintain that if we are concerned about the welfare of our state, we cannot interest ourselves in the fate of our country; or that keeping order in our homes will hinder us from keeping order in the community in which we live.

For all these reasons our America, international in origin and internationalist in aspiration, feels a natural repugnance toward any system of world policy based on the formation of groups or blocs. In America we reject any policy of a balance based on antagonisms between rival blocs. In America we do not believe that a balance of hatreds can insure peace. We do believe in the consolidation of peace through the cooperation of all forces.

The unavailing European "balance of power" policy suffers from the same basic defects as characterize the antidemocratic concept of history: all men are evil and only by balancing their hatreds shall we have peace . . . If this unstable balance cannot be maintained, then let war come and may the will of the strong become law!

Since the beginning of our independence, we in America have categorically denounced recourse to war. In the Pan American movement, from the Assembly of Panama in 1826 to the Conference of Chapultepec in 1945, we have always pro

claimed ourselves against war and in favor of the peaceful solution of all conflicts, whatever their origin. This unwavering faith, not only in the goodness but in the possibility of peace, is one of our characteristic traits, along with our love for liberty and our democratic aspiration.

In America, continent with a fighting but not a militarist tradition, no one has ever presumed to pronounce in favor of the law of force. On the contrary-and it is well to repeat it we have always condemned violence and aggression. Our continent has been the cradle of Emancipators, of Liberators. The Conquistadors who pressed onto American soil came from other continents.

Any

The basis of blocs among nations is either hatred or fear. The moral foundation of the Inter-American System is human brotherhood; and among brothers, fear has no place. America recognizes no bloc except that of mankind. maneuver that seeks to raise barriers between men, through the formation of groups, endangers the peace of America and goes against the moral fiber of our continent. It is not in vain that America is known as the melting pot of the world. We are proud of being a melting pot. We shall take care to continue to be one. Not only does the peace of our continent require it now more than ever, but our culture, fundamentally international, also demands it.

We find, in our hemisphere, the defects of all peoples; but also, and above all, we find in it the good qualities of all men. To introduce, in our time and in our hemisphere, arbitrary discriminations-racial, religious, cultural, or linguistic-is to disregard the ideals that inspired the conduct of our forefathers. Deliberately to develop differences, not only among ourselves but also between our continent and the rest of the world, is to work against the

joy peace and to live happily in our corner of the world, but also in order to enable America to be more useful to humanity. Only thus can our continent completely fulfill its destiny.

IT was more than a fortunate coincidence that as the League of Nations lost its effectiveness as an agency for the development of international law during the decade preceding the recent war, the inter-American regional system increased in internal unity and moral strength. While the disruptive forces of fanatical nationalism in Europe and Asia were preparing for a worldwide conflict, the American States were drawing closer together, reaffirming fundamental principles, promoting the development of their common interests, and creating new machinery to make their cooperation more effective. The resulting advantages were felt when the test of war came; and they are being felt even more now in the period of reconstruction.

No greater tribute could be paid to the inter-American regional system than the record of its contribution to the formulation of the United Nations. When the Dumbarton Oaks Proposals were submitted to them the American Governments took seriously the task before them. They analyzed with minute care the juridical principles upon which the new organization was to be based; they examined the machinery set up to attain the objectives of the organization; and they proposed modifications of the charter drawn from their own continental traditions and from their practical experience in inter-American cooperation. The Charter is today a better document in consequence. It is to be expected that the inter-American group

t

will continue to exercise a beneficial fluence upon the development of United Nations as an effective agency law and order; and it is equally to expected that the universal organizatio will in turn influence the development the inter-American regional system.

What are the principles of law whic must find their application in the relation between the two groups? The America Republics, each and all, began thei existence by revolting against government which they believed had no inherent o moral right to govern them. It wa natural, therefore, that throughout thei history they should stress the right of man as man, to be free from arbitrary restraint States, their leaders proclaimed, were no endowed with a mystic personality transcending the fundamental interests of the individual men who established them. Government must be by consent of the governed, if it was to have legal or moral justification. Self-determination was not so much a principle of international law as of natural law, a fundamental condition of social life. Unhappily, self-determination became confused at times with the right to particular national boundaries; and the high moral principle of human liberty was occasionally lost in the struggle to exercise control over a few extra square miles of territory. That day, it is believed, is now past. The Act of Chapultepec reaffirms the proscription of territorial conquest and the nonrecognition of acqui

sitions of territory made by force; and the will of the inter-American community is now squarely behind the principle.

Under the conditions that prevailed at the time the American States declared their independence, the principle of selfdetermination could only be maintained by individual measures of defense. Hence the American Republics welcomed the principle announced by President Monroe, that any interposition by European powers for the purpose of oppressing or controlling in any way the destiny of the new American governments would be resisted by the United States. The effect of the Monroe Doctrine was to make the Atlantic Ocean a true barrier of defense; and so long as the Latin American States had confidence in the good faith of the United States their

own defense was assured. When, at the close of the century, the policies of the American Government seemed to them to be in conflict with its own traditional principles, jurists were for a time bewildered. The Monroe Doctrine was still an ideal; but of what avail was it to exclude European powers from the American continent if the United States was now to replace them on this side of the Atlantic?

The answer to this critical question was long delayed; but it came at last in 1936. The defense of the Western Hemisphere had become too big a problem to be undertaken by the United States alone. The United States now offered to share the obligation and the responsibility with the other American States. Happily the offer was accepted in the same spirit of good