In the case of the United States, however, the Constitution, as modified by political custom, requires a party majority much larger than any Administration can ordinarily hope to enjoy, and if that margin of party strength is lacking, the Administration's position in the conduct of foreign affairs becomes insecure. Moreover this two-thirds rule is more onerous to the Administration that even the same requirement would be to the executive power in a European state, because in the latter case the fact that the Executive derives his powers from a parliamentary majority insures much closer political harmony than exists between our Senate and President. The relation between these two is only a liaison, between branches of government that in most respects are independent of each other, which is maintained only through personal influence, the use of patronage and a common party allegiance. All of these three may fail; personal influence may be replaced by antipathy, and of course patronage and a common party allegiance avail only among Senators of the President's own party, who may be only a small majority or even a minority. Since it has become clear that the Senate may be expected to deal with treaties according to party lines, it is a logical necessity that the required majority for ratification should be reduced enough to make the rule practical and workable under ordinary political conditions. To make it obligatory for an Administration to command a two-thirds vote upon a treaty-which in effect means a party majority of 32-is to impose a condition that cannot often be met. In the last forty years no Administration has enjoyed such a party backing, and only in two Congresses during that period-the Sixtieth and the Sixty-first-did the Administration's majority even approximate that figure. If the requirement were reduced to three-fifths or 60 per cent, instead of 66.6 per cent, it would be much more workable. A President strong politically might fairly hope to have a Senate standing 58 to 38 in his favor; yet even that hope has been realized in only four Congresses in the 22 that have sat since 1880. From 1880 to 1899 no party majority in the Senate has exceeded 10. A requirement of 55 per cent, or 53 to 43, might seem low, yet it would in practice call for a party majority of approximately 10; and in any case it would be enough to insure a reasonably strong preponderance of opinion in a chamber of only 96 members. Any proposal to reduce the minimum for ratification naturally evokes the objection that an international agreement is a matter of such gravity that it ought to be approved upon its merits by an ample majority. But the answer is twofold: first, that such matters patently are no longer decided upon their merits; and second, that whatever the theoretical value of the rule is, or may have been, it has become practically unworkable and leads to deadlock and inaction. In the light of the votes and percentages already referred to, it is idle to attempt to maintain the fiction of nonpartisan consideration of treaties. This is reflected in the small ratio of defections from party alignment. Thus in the final vote of November 19, 1919, which was the clearest test of party attitude, only one Republican and seven Democrats were out of step with their respective parties. In the case of the Four Power treaty the vote on the first reservation showed only five Republicans and three Democrats out of step, and on the final vote only four Republicans and 12 Democrats. In the case of both treaties party strength determined the outcome. Whatever the faults of President Wilson's treaty may have been, the primary cause of its rejection was the fact that the political opposition was strong enough to block it. On the other hand, with all the merits of the Four Power treaty, and notwithstanding the exceptionally large party majority of 59 to 35 in the Senate, the Administration barely succeeded in obtaining ratification. It is only fair to concede that a certain proportion of both Republicans and Democrats who apparently followed party leadership judged these treaties upon their merits and would have voted the same way had they belonged to the opposing parties. But, paradoxical as it might appear, this fact would in no wise abate the necessity of a two-thirds party majority in order to insure a two-thirds treaty majority, as long as any considerable number of Senators regard a treaty as a party issue; because the unprejudiced or nonpartisan votes presumably would come proportionately from both sides of the chamber. For example, suppose a treaty comes as a Republican party issue before a Senate made up of 64 Republicans and 32 Democrats. If all voted as partisans there would be a two-thirds majority for ratification. But suppose half the members on each side ignored politics and weighed the treaty on its merits. Even though these men approved the treaty on its merits by a two-thirds vote, or 32 to 16, still 32 more votes would have to come from the ranks of the 48 partisan Senators in order to ratify the treaty. In the same manner if 60 Senators voting as nonpartisans stood two to one for ratification, the Administration would still have to get 24 out of the other 36 partisan Senators; otherwise the treaty would fail, though approved on its merits by a two-to-one majority of unprejudiced votes. In other words, whatever the number of partisan votes may be, the President must control two-thirds of them; otherwise the minority of unprejudiced opinions will prevail over the majority. Even though 90 members, considering a treaty judicially, approved it by a vote of 60 to 30, three hostile partisan votes out of the remaining six would defeat ratification. The existing rule therefore enables a few partisan Senators to nullify the will of a large majority of the whole body. The settled political practice of dealing with treaties as matters of party policy, coupled with the two-thirds rule, has shown its results so clearly that any further demonstration would be superfluous. We may accept as a fact henceforth that it is impossible for the American Government to do business as effectively as other nations in any matter involving an important treaty. Inasmuch as one Administration cannot bind its successor by any commitment or statement of policy, it is clear that no international engagements can be undertaken except through the medium of treaties; and it has now become equally clear that the fate of such treaties is altogether precarious. Therefore our Government is left incapable of making a tentative agreement that embodies even a fair prospect of finality. Diplomatic communications become merely individual expressions of officials, binding only while they remain in office, and to be relied upon only so far as the Administration is able to carry them out independently of the Senate. International conferences in which we take part become mere preliminary pour-parlers, which may or may not lead to definitive agreements, the issue depending on the ebb and flow of domestic politics. Our representatives in such conferences are not in any sense plenipotentiaries and their "full powers" are a mere form, for their proposals, acceptances and commitments carry with them only a possibility of confirmation. Obviously such a spokesman is at a disadvantage in dealing with one whose acts are virtually binding ab initio and which are practically certain to be ratified. Such uncertainty not only impairs the efficiency of our diplomatic practice, but impairs the country's prestige in the councils of the nations. The nation is placed in the position of an individual who cannot even himself be sure that he means what he says or that he can perform what he undertakes. The reaction upon our own statecraft is hardly less pernicious. It cannot fail to dishearten an able diplomat to see his best work undone, despite its acknowledged merits, through the operation of an obsolete and unreasonable rule, and the effect upon public opinion must inevitably be confusing and demoralizing. It is not necessarily an evil thing that the disposition of treaties has become a matter of party politics. It seems inevitable that our Government must be carried on under the party system, and it is to be expected that foreign relations not only will tend increasingly to become party issues, but that they will become increasingly important as such. The evil lies in the fact that we do not permit such issues to be disposed of according to the logical and workable methods whereby all other political issues are disposed of, but have placed them in a parliamentary straitjacket that prevents normal action and which is likely to result in deadlock unless the Administration happens to possess abnormal political strength. We look to the dominant party, represented by the President and a majority in the houses of Congress, to reflect public sentiment and execute the will of the majority, and we hold it responsible for its action both in foreign and domestic affairs. Let us, then, provide a reasonable mechanism through which that responsibility can be discharged. STUART H. PERRY. THE BUILDING OF A BUILDER: A. BARTON HEPBURN BY IRVING BACHELLER FROM hilltops near the place of my birth I could see, when a lad, one of the north gables of the wilderness and the slope of its great green roof coming down from the high ridges in the south. The eaves of this roof dripped into the long, fertile valley of the St. Lawrence. My father's farm was near the southern side of this valley and beyond the first lift of the foothills. Gray rocks and boulders rose above the vivid green mantle of its big pasture. They and their kind had held a heavy mortgage on the land. They remind me of the desperate struggle against gravitation in which those northern pioneers wore and bent their bodies. The clay lands ended a mile or so beyond us. Then came the sand hills with their shacks and cabins, and shiftless, half-hearted folk, looking as poor as the scanty growth of vegetation in their fields. Beyond a great sand hill in the south was the village of Colton. It was built on the sands in a poor country, but it lay beside a big, husky, bounding river which had thrown foamy loops around hills and mountains and leaped precipices and charged through rock gorges and down long, tumbly slopes, hurrying out of far reaches of the wilderness toward the sown lands. Colton was on the edge of the latter. Colton was a child of the Racquette River feeding on its taurine vitality. The wealth of Golconda was along its shores-mammoth pines, straight as a ship's mast and a hundred feet to the first limb; spruces the like of which were not to be found in eastern America, and enough of them to build a hundred cities. Every winter the big, brawny woodchoppers of the North went further up the river with saws and axes and teams of oxen and horses and built their camps and felled the great trees and filled their skidways. In the spring, down came the costly freight on the back of this mighty water-horse, thundering over |