AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE

Evening Star, Issue 18503, 10 December 1923, Page 4

AMERICA AND THE LEAGUE

ADDRESS BY MR HAN AN

The Hon. J. A. Hanan, in the course of a fine address given on Wednesday at the Invercargill Middle School’s jubilee celebrations, said that while it was well

that they should erect memorials in honor of those who had made the supreme sacrifice in the World War, there wore other ways of expressing their gratitude to the heroic dead, and one was to see that the cause for which so many laid down their lives was not betrayed, and that every practical effort was put forth to bring in a new world for ever free from the horrors and sorrows of war. To advance that magnificent project they _ sboud wholeheartedly support the spirit, aims, and ideals for which the League of Nations stood. He firmly believed that if the churches, the schools, and, the Tress in America, would at once energetically and enthusiastically set to work to foster and establish a real live public opinion and a national conscience in favor of the abolition of war-—which was the most ferocious, wicked, and futile of human follies—the result would' be that that powerful nation would rise to a true sense_ of its moral duty, como forward, and join the League of Nations. All the true friends of humanity wore calling to America to throw all her enormous power and influence into the League of Nations, and to abandon her policy of isolation and her present cold, indifferent altitude towards the disquieting

conditions and dark forces that were being manifested and threatening Europe again with the fell calamities of war. With America as a member of the League of Nations they would then have the best assurance for a broad and firm foundation being laid for the future peace of tho world, and mankind being blessed by a new and brighter era of progress and happiness. (Applause.)