Mr. Saloman Levinson, the Chicago Jewish lawyer whom Briand greeted two years ago at The Hague as “the real father of the Kellogg Pact”, is in London, the “Manchester Guardian” writes to-day. For twelve years, it says, Mr. Levinson has used the legal intellect which build up his tidy fortune to endeavour to make war at least a serious crime.
Mr. Levinson’s latest surprise, he tells me, is at the apparent failure of people in high places here to grasp the real significance of President Hoover’s Message to Congress. “The proposal to re-establish the Foreign Debt Commission is Quite comparable in its far-reaching possibilities to the re-examination now going on at Basle of Germany’s capacity to pay reparations”, he told me. “The Foreign Debt Commission is empowered, if it follows its prototype of 1923, to do the some thing for all countries. It can re-examine and reopen the question of any Allied debts owing to the United States – and assess the probability of payment under present conditions or those that are expected in the future. But it must not be lost sight of”, Mr. Levinson was frank enough to say, “that neither the Debt Commission nor Congress nor the President of the United States can produce and carry through a plan that will relieve the terrific conditions now prevailing in Europe without the support of public opinion in America.
“To this public opinion two things are indispensable: the drastic reductions of reparations to a liveable point and a drastic reduction of armaments. This is not because the United States wish to dictate policies to Europe, but simply because we look upon these problems form the viewpoint of reconstruction, economic salvation, and world peace”.
Mr. Levinson, it is added, has just come from Paris, where the French gave him every facility for understanding their point of view.
Mr. Levinson has been spoken of as candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize for his part in the movement to outlaw war, and several important newspapers, like the “Chicago Tribune”, have urged his claims in this regard. The “Christian Century” of Chicago, when President Hoover proclaimed the Kellogg Treaties at the White House, wrote that it seemed appropriate at this moment to point out that Mr. Levinson who had first conceived the idea of proceeding against war by outlawing it was the real hero of this magnificent achievement. It was Mr. Levinson, it said, who inspired the movement, discovered the leaders and supplied the vision and faith, the arguments and strategy by which it finally reached its goal, and he, more than all others, official or unofficial, deserves our plaudits.
Mr. Levinson has established a 55,000 dollar Outlawry of War Foundation at the University of Idaho in honour of Senator Borah, the Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate, in recognition of his efforts on behalf of the movement to outlaw war.
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