For a long time writers on international law took it for granted that the subject of their studies was a relatively recent product of modern civilization, and that the ancient world did not know any system of international law. If we go back to the literature of the nineteenth century, we can find a certain feeling of pride among internationalists that international law was one of the best fruits of our civilization and that it was a system which distinguished us from the ancient barbarians. Some of these writers paid special attention to this question of origins and endeavored to explain why the ancient world never could have had any international law.
One of the most difficult problems of modern political science is that of sovereignty. The commonly accepted theory contains many elements that seem to be in obvious contradiction to our ideals of democracy; some of them do not fit into the present-day conception of state and government, while others are plain remnants of feudalism and autocracy. One should keep in mind, however, that it is not only a purely theoretical problem closely associated with the general idea of the state, but that it is also an eminently practical one, as it necessarily involves the political question of limitations on the state's powers. Those limitations are of equal importance internally, in the relations between state and citizen, and externally, in the domain of international law.As often happens in cases where political questions are involved, the theory of sovereignty has two extreme wings of proponents. On the one hand there are theorists who defend an all-powerful state and make of the idea of sovereignty the emblem and symbol of the all-powerful state authority. On the other hand, there have appeared recently many writers, who believe that dangers lurk in the views of the first-mentioned school and who are loath to admit that any power, state or personal, may be unlimited; they distrust the theory of sovereignty, because of its association with unlimited power; consequently, they deny the existence of sovereignty altogether, asserting that it has no place whatever in the modern theory of the state.
Slow, but very steady, was the advance of Russia into Siberia. For centuries did the Russians move onward, gradually driving back, conquering or assimilating the Mongolian aborigines. For a very long time Siberia seemed only a vast wilderness and a happy hunting ground for the fur trader and trapper. Later, and mainly on account of its great distance from European Russia, the Siberian country was used by the Tsars for purposes of penal colonization. Thus, there grew up that sad reputation, which clung to Siberia for many generations, of a bleak land of exile, where human suffering attained its very limit. The famous book of George Kennan, Siberia and the Exile System, helped much to popularize these ideas, bringing home to the outside world the worst sides of the former autocratic régime of Russia.
In the historical development of individual nations revolutions come and go as tremendous earthquakes, upsetting the standing order and creating new constellations and configurations. After an earthquake on former plains new mountain ranges arise and, vice versa, enormous peaks suddenly disappear; quite so in the case of a revolution, which overturns century old institutions and organizations. At the time when the upheaval occurs, it often seems that the whole social structure is destroyed forever and that something entirely new is being created. And yet, everyone who has studied history knows very well that even in revolutions we have a constant evolution, that much of the old order remains and that the new institutions have many attachments in the past, no matter how completely new they may seem at the moment of their political birth.Take the French Revolution of 1789 as a most vivid example. It might have seemed to contemporaries that the whole former French state and government, the social as well as the economic structure, had disappeared and were utterly destroyed.
The Ninth International Red Cross Conference met at Washington on the 7th of May, 1912. During the ten days that the conference sat (7th-17th), very much work was accomplished; at the same time the foreign delegates were given an excellent opportunity of seeing the beautiful American capital and of enjoying the renowned American hospitality; every evening was given up to some entertainment and many of the afternoons also. Conspicuous by its charm and beauty was the reception of the President and Mrs. Taft on the lawn of the White House. The social events culminated in a large banquet given on the 16th by the American Red Cross. Next day the delegates took leave of their hospitable hosts.
