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Peace Body Urges Creation of World Federation Safeguards for Minorities

November 12, 1940
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A proposal for a world federation which would, among other things, limit the right of nations in the treatment of their minorities was set forth today in a preliminary report of the Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, based on a 10-month study which embodied suggestions from “grass root areas” and from authorities on international problems.

Discussing limitations on the rights of nations in various fields, the report declares: “Nations must accept certain human and cultural rights in their constitutions and in international covenants. The destruction of civil liberties anywhere creates danger of war. The peace is not secure if any large and efficient population is permanently subject to a control which can create a fanatical national sentiment impervious to external opinion.”

Peace can never be organized on the principle of world mastery by one race, the report asserts.

“Efforts are being made today with the support of millions in the autocratic states to achieve continental or world empire unifying mankind by the coercive authority of the government most efficient at conquest,” it is stated. “The commission believes that such an ideal cannot be a permanent means for organizing the world for peace. The enduring needs of mankind can never be satisfied by a philosophy based on human inequality and asserting that a race of masters should organize a subservient world.”

The report was analyzed at a press conference at the Biltmore Hotal by Dr. James T. Shotwell, chairman of the commission, and Dr. Clyde Eagleton, chairman of its studies committee. William Allan Neilson is chairman of the executive committee and Clark M. Eichelberger is director of the commission. The report is signed by 57 members of the commission.

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