in Warfield,
H. St. G. Tucker.

Executive Committee.

W.H. Mann,
John B. Clark,
J.M. Dickinson,
Austen G. Fox,
Henry C. Morris,
Leo S. Rowe,
Oscar S. Straus,
Thomas R. White,
Hamilton Holt,
Theodore Marburg,
W.B. Howland,
John H. Hammond,
W.H. Short,
A.L. Lowell,
John A. Stewart,
William H. Taft.

German-American Dissent

By Hugo Muensterberg.

The subjoined letter from Hugo Muensterberg, Professor of
Psychology at Harvard University, is addressed to Augustus
J. Cadwalader, Secretary of the National Provisional
Committee for the League to Enforce Peace.

Clifton, Mass., June 9, 1915.

Dear Sir: I beg to express my thanks for the courtesy of the
invitation to attend the conference of the League of Peace in
Independence Hall under the Presidency of the Hon. W.H. Taft. I feel
myself, of course, in deepest sympathy with the spirit of justice and
peacefulness which has suggested the foundation of such a league.
Nevertheless, I beg to be excused from attendance, as I am convinced
that this time of international excitement and prejudice is unfit for
the crystallization of new forms for the common life of the nations.

I venture, however, to add that I feel in any case grave doubts of the
value of any plans which aim to secure future peace by the traditional
type of agreements and treaties. We live in the midst of a war in
which one belligerent nation after another has felt obliged to
disregard treaties and to interpret agreements in a one sided way.
Only yesterday Italy, without any reason of vital necessity, annulled
an agreement and a treaty which had appeared the firmest in European
politics, and which yet failed in the first hour of clashing
interests. A psychologist has no right to expect that the national
temper of the future will be different.

Moreover, the Supreme Court of the United States has sanctioned the
idea, which is shared practically by all nations, that treaties are no
longer binding when a situation has changed so that the fulfillment of
the agreement would be against the vital interests of the nation. We
have learned during the last ten months how easily such disburdening
changes can be discovered as soon as the national passions are
awakened.

The new plan depends upon only one new feature by which the mutual
agreement is to be fortified against the demands of national
excitement. The plan of the League of Peace promises the joint use of
military fo