On what conditions should the United States enter a world organization for the maintenance of peace? Viewing the question broadly, should not the United States enter world organization upon one condition, namely, that the organization give promise of the utmost achievement in the maintenance of peace? Unless we are prepared to repudiate the avowals of our statesmen and reverse what is perhaps the oldest and most fundamental tradition of our foreign policy, can we consistently insist upon any other condition than this one?

A good deal has been said of late about the “American idea” in international relationships. It has been suggested that the “American idea” was defined in Washington's farewell address, in the Monroe Doctrine, or in America's participation in the peace conferences held at The Hague. It seems evident, however, that this involves a confusion of the idea with its occasional manifestation in action. If there is any one outstanding “American idea” which has inspired our foreign policy from the beginning—any quintessence of principle which may be derived alike from the first neutrality proclamation, the farewell address, Monroe's message, Hay's pronouncement for the open door, or America's participation in the conferences at The Hague—that idea is the maintenance of just and honorable peace.

Formerly political scientists were inclined to criticize the American theory and practice of the separation of powers in the federal and state governments and to commend instead the cabinet or parliamentary form of organization. Thus Walter Bagehot, Sir Henry Maine, Woodrow Wilson, Frank J. Goodnow, along with many others, pointed to the advantages of cabinet or parliamentary government over presidential government as developed in the United States. A consensus of opinion was expressed by Wilson who said, “As at present constituted, the federal government lacks strength because its powers are divided, lacks promptness because its authorities are multiplied, lacks wieldiness because its processes are roundabout, lacks efficiency because its responsibility is indistinct and its action is without competent direction.” At one time the American plan of separation of powers was compared unfavorably with the French system in which governmental powers were divided into two branches—a policy-forming branch or “Politics” and a policy executing branch or “Administration.” On another occasion the tripartite system of the separation of powers was charged with responsibility for much of the political corruption prevalent in American politics. The same theory of separation has often been condemned as requiring too many checks and balances and as involving a do-nothing policy for legislative and executive officers.

In this period during which all political institutions are being tested as never before by the searching criticism of an awakened world and by application to the well-nigh insoluble problems left by the World War, the constitutions which have been developed by the post-war states of Europe possess a peculiar interest to the student of public affairs. They are the results of the conscious effort of the statesmen of these new commonwealths to combine with the historic institutions of their own lands those features of the public law and the political practises of the older democracies which experience has proven to be workable, to be conducive of good government, and to make possible a more or less popular control over affairs of state. The product of a season when democracy is the fashion, all of these instruments are filled with rules and phrases which have a familiar ring in American ears, despite a more than occasional Gallic or native accent.

The “self-incrimination” clause of the Fifth Amendment was brought forward in five cases, in three of which it was attended by the “search and seizure” provisions of the Fourth Amendment. The most important of these cases was Gouled v. the United States, in which the court was asked to pass upon the admissibility in evidence, first, of a paper obtained surreptitiously by officers of the government from the office of the accused; and secondly, of papers, described to be of “evidential value only,” which were taken from the office of accused under a search warrant. The court, declaring that the constitutional provisions involved must receive “a liberal construction, so as to prevent stealthy encroachment upon ‥‥ the rights secured by them,” held that the government had no right to the possession of any of these papers nor to the use of them as evidence. At the same time, it was held that if the government had had the right to seize the papers in question, for instance, as so much contraband property, and had done so under a warrant sufficient in form, “then it would have been competent to use them to prove any crime against accused as to which they constituted relevant evidence.”