THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS: Vox, et Praeterea Nihil

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case, only the phase of the peace deliberations, because he was in his later years as despotic as had been his forbears).

The Holy Alliance was formed on the initiative of Alexander I. This alliance was formed principally upon moral and religious conviction that war was wrong. The signatories to the Alliance were to bind themselves " to remain united by the bonds of true and indissoluble fraternity; to assist each other on all occasions and in all places; to treat their subjects as members of a single Christian nation; to govern in conformity with the teachings of Christ." The Alliance failed because the parties thereto found themselves in opposition to created enemies. Thereafter it became an instrument for bolstering up absolutism and in influence and practical good it remained in reality, to use the words of Metternich, "a sonorous nothing."

Woodrow Wilson was the moving spirit for the League of Nations in 1919, and there can be no doubt that the League was founded upon moral, thereby connoting religious, principles. The role of Mr. Wilson at Paris in 1919 was analogous to that of Tsar Alexander I at Vienna in 1815. Recent events in the League have shown a marked analogy to the fate of the idealistic Holy Alliance. The question of the hour is: Will the U. S. strengthen the League or is it to become a " sonorous nothing ? "

* WOODROW WILSON'S CASE FOR THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS—Hamilton Foley— Princeton University Press ($1.75).