Page 49 - 1926 February - To Dragma

212 TO DRAGMA OF ALPHA OMICRON PI

ABOUT T H E GREATEST OF EXPERIMENTS

J O H N H . CLARKET

, The following is written in response to a request by the Editor of the
Quarterly that I send a message to my brothers in A K E about the great
experiment in World organization in which my chief interest is centered
in these later years of my life.

A World Secretariat

I meet so many men and women, otherwise well informed, who know
so little about what is being done at Geneva that I wonder i f all my
younger brethren in A K E realize that the year round, there are at work
there, 465 men and women, of thirty-four nationalities, many of them ex-
perts of the first rank, constantly studying international problems. Alosf
disputes between nations arise f r o m misunderstanding of the facts involved
and here for the first time in the history of the world is a group of
scholars, charged with the single duty of searching out, recording and
classifying the unbiased facts in cases as they arise to that they may be
readily available when needed by statesmen. Thus on the foundation of
dependable knowledge of the facts and conditions involved, the League of
Nations is going forward to build the rational processes which it is hoped
may supplant the irrational, savage processes of war as a means of settling
international disputes. This- "Secretariat of the League of Nations," is a
new thing, doing new work in the world and it has already proved itself
to be so useful that i f the League were to be dissolved tomorrow there can-
not be any doubt that the nations would be obliged to organize its equivalent
as an indispensable agency for the conduct of their usual and necessary as
well as their emergency international relations.

A l l the nations of consequence except Russia and the United States, are
making much use of this new agency of civilization and peace in the world.
The future will wonder that such an institution was not devised a century
earlier.

The Labor Office

I wonder also i f all of my younger friends in A K E know that there is
another body of three hundred and seventeen men and women representing
twenty-eight nationalities, constituting the staff of the "International Labor
Office" of the League of Nations. This Labor Office is controlled by a
governing body composed of twenty-four members, twelve representing
governments, six representing employers and six representing the workers
of various nations. Its purpose is to candidly study the conditions of labor
throughout the world and to formulate legislative and social policies, which
it is believed will improve the conditions of the burden bearers in all lands.
These formulated results are transmitted to the various nations for such
action as each may, in its discretion, deem it wise to take. The principal
investigations and recommendations of this new agency have thus far
related to the following vital problems; the eight-hour day; the unemploy-
ment problem; the employment of women in labor at night, and just before