The American Republics The Pan-American Conference, which opens next week
at Buenos Aires, may prove of considerable importance not only in uniting the States of the American continent, but in defining the relations between that continent and the rest of the world. The fact that Mr. Roosevelt, strengthened by all the prestige of his triumphant re- election, is to attend the Conference, coupled with the emphasis the President himself laid on the importance of the Conference in a broadcast speech, suggests that something more than the passage of academic resolutions will be attempted. President Wilson, twenty years ago, put in forcible and clear-cut language his idea of a Pan- American agreement for the preservation of peace and mutual assistance to an aggressor, and it is probable that his Democratic successor has much the same thing in mind, though with less emphasis on the idea of armed support. A regional American agreement -within the framework of the League Covenant would in no way run counter to the purposes of the League, though it might considerably reduce the interest of many of the Latin-American Republics in Geneva. In that case the League of Nations would tend -to evolve into a series of regional groups, closely associated and meeting from time to time as a whole. This means looking some way ahead ; the proceedings at Buenos Aires will indicate whether it is well to look in that direction at all or not.
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