A CALL FOR PEACE
Farmer, Fyke
A Call for Peace By FYKE FARMER This is the third of a series of articles by proponents of specific proposals [or peace and world organization. Sen. Estes Kefauver argued the case for Federal...
...This law was enacted at the 1949 session of the State Legislature...
...On Aug...
...The main object, common to all countries, is the selection by universal adult suffrage of the specified quota of representatives at the Convention...
...It could not prove that either system is capable of becoming the image of the developing world system of social order...
...The foundation stone for Federal World Government will be laid at Geneva in December 1950...
...A Call is being issued to many thousands of men and women of nations in the West and in the East who desire the complete elimination of war, to support the Peoples World Convention at Geneva, Switzerland, Dec...
...Impartiality will be assured by the fact that they will not be subject to the control or domination by any national government...
...3, 1950, at the regular state election, all of the qualified voters in Tennessee had the privilege of voting for three delegates to the World Constituent Assembly to meet in Geneva in December 1950...
...The specialized agencies of UN are also invited to take part in the planning of world government so that they can become genuinely effective agencies to promote universal welfare...
...Day by day, week by week, and month by month, World Government will be constructed through widespread education and public enlightenment...
...The attention and hopes of men and women the world over will be focused upon it...
...When Christmas Eve came, his prayers were still unanswered...
...That night he changed his prayer...
...This Constitution will be proposed through the governments separately or in assembly in the United Nations for ratification by the people of all nations...
...Of primary and urgent importance is the development of the world's basic resources for the benefit of all its citizens, and the problems of freeing world trade and commerce from restrictions in what are fancied to be national interests...
...He prayed the Lord to send him to a turkey...
...Thus, the United Nations can continue in existence for what it is worth until an acceptable and effective world government has been set up and has begun to function...
...In several other countries, draft bills have been prepared and await introduction in the Parliaments at the earliest opportunity...
...II The first concrete step towards the accomplishment of this plan was the adoption of a law by the Tennessee General Assembly to provide for the election of delegates...
...Farmer practiced law in Tennessee until 1946, when he quit to launch organization of the People's World Constituent Assembly...
...It is the one plan which can be accepted by all nations, because it is against none and for the true interests of all...
...In others, elections may be organized on a purely unofficial or voluntary basis...
...His prayer was answered...
...National governments can no longer protect their citizens from war...
...If this must come to pass, then the Atlantic Charter was a delusion, and millions of people have died in vain...
...This bill provides for the election of 40 Italian dele-Sates to the Peoples' World Convention to be chosen principally from among the Parliamentary Sroups favoring world federation...
...Uniformity, desirable as it may be, is not absolutely necessary at the start...
...It will be chiefly c©n-cerned with the initiation of plans, for the fair and democratic election of delegates in all countries to the World Constituent Assembly...
...But peace, as Scott Nearing has said, will not descend on our shoulder like a dove...
...Delegates are not to be appointed by the governments, but are to be elected by the people, i.e., with the maximum popular participation...
...Their fault has been that their goals were too short and too small...
...Other international conferences have proceeded on the premise that war will occur...
...The controlling authority will be the legislative branch of the government of the people of the world, by the people of the world, and for the people of the world...
...A graduate of Vanderbilt University and Yale Law School, Mr...
...The attempt of the two rival national states to unify this world economy, each in its own interests more than for the common weal, is what is at the bottom of the present crisis...
...Some—perhaps all of them—have deplored war as an unmitigated evil...
...Therefore, the World Constituent Assembly will address itself to the task of the actual creation of new political institutions based on the fundamental unity of mankind...
...Approximately 200,000 voters of the state participated in this election...
...The world will not suffer a military world-state run from either Washington or Moscow...
...Already there is an interdependent world economy...
...Estes Kefauver argued the case for Federal Union in our July issue, and Cord Meyer, Jr., chairman o{ its executive committee, performed the same service for United World Federalists, Inc., in our August number...
...At the present juncture of history, mankind faces the absolute necessity of ascending to a higher spiritual and intellectual level than ever before...
...It is only necessary to create a different system for the regulation of their external relations...
...The conflict between them exists solely because both place the interests of the national state resting upon force above the principles of universal Right and Justice...
...These conferences and conventions have succeeded fairly well in what they proposed to accomplish...
...Once there is acceptance of the principle that military force will not be used by either national state to perpetuate or extend its social and economic system, we are on the road to a harmonious relationship...
...World Government will be declared in force...
...There has never before been an international assembly having for its purpose the complete elimination of war as an institution...
...The World Constituent Assembly will quickly gain widespread support as it is recognized for what it really is—the only practical alternative to World War III...
...If another world war should be fought, it might or might not settle which of the two rival systems is more efficient in war...
...He is a member of the Council of World Movement for World Federal Government and of the People's World Convention Executive Committee on Arrangements...
...It will examine all practical proposals for the establishment of world order with justice and equality for all people under world law...
...They must regain their original character as agencies for general and widespread diffusion of the benefits of scientific, industrial, and cultural development...
...After ratification of the Constitution by a given percentage of the nations of the world, or by the nations representing a given percentage of the people of the world...
...Others have timidly sought to make war less likely to occur, e.g., the San Francisco Conference at which the United Nations Charter was drafted by diplomatic representatives of governments...
...There will be no turning back...
...These safeguards will be the impartial institutions and organs of federal world government I have described...
...Inherently, the two systems are not organized on principles so opposite to each other that one system must perish and the other survive...
...The basis of representation will be one delegate per million population...
...The representatives of the people drafting the world constitution can also decide what powers the world government will need in order to promote comprehensive social and economic progress on a world-wide front...
...Still others, like the Red Cross conventions, have aimed at rendering war more tolerable whenever it does occur...
...Night after night, morning after morning, he prayed the Lord to send him a turkey...
...Invitations are being extended to all the members of that organization to make suggestions regarding the formulation of the Constitution...
...Markets and commerce must cease to be the instrumentalities of the national governments for economic warfare...
...He was one of three delegates elected by the people of Tennessee to the World Constituent Assembly at the election last August uals in all countries of the natural and unalienable right of self-defense...
...2, 1951...
...We have been praying for peace in our time...
...A bill similar to the Tennessee W, drafted by Jean Diedisheim and Paul Grunebaum-Ballin, former Vice-President of the Supreme Court of France, was introduced in the French Parliament in March...
...On June 29, a similar bill was introduced in the Italian Parliament by 38 members...
...The overwhelming proportion of the members of that order is still in the future...
...In some, elections will be authorized by the national parliaments or by the legislative assemblies of the provinces, states, or local communities...
...The International Court of Justice will be given compulsory jurisdiction over all controversies which under the present diplomatic system might become the occasion of armed conflict...
...The people of the world today are where the old Negro was on Christmas Eve...
...Nation after nation, because of the irresistible force of world moral opinion, will decide, I believe, to be represented in the Convention through popularly elected delegates...
...One especially good feature of the plan for initiating world federal government through the World Constituent Assembly draft of the World Constitution is that it does not interfere with the United Nations...
...ONCE upon a time there was an old Negro down South who wanted a turkey for Christmas...
...It is essential that the delegates be chosen with the maximum popular participation, in such a manner that they will be the representatives of their peoples' will to peace and not merely agents appointed by and acting for the national governments...
...It is an utterly erroneous theory that peaceful coexistence of the two systems is impossible without internal changes in the one or other system...
...International disputes arising from any cause whatsoever will be settled by judicial process...
...Fulfilling their natural function, they can promote the economic well-being of all people on conditions of equality and justice...
...The irresponsible struggle for power between rival social and economic systems is today the most conspicuous aspect of that process...
...The object of the World Constituent Assembly will be to formulate a World Constitution...
...All nations, as well as the colonies of any nation, are invited to be represented at the Assembly...
...Detailed methods for the election of delegates to the World Constituent Assembly cannot be prescribed for all countries...
...This time the renunciation of the use of force and the threat of force must be followed by the erection of adequate safeguards to prevent the possibility of another resort to force...
...The extreme peril of extermination confronting us justifies the exercise by individFYKE FARMER'S crusade to banish war by law has won international attention in the press and parliaments of Europe and North America...
...They will have the right and power to throw away all the molds of the past and build on entirely new patterns...
...30, 1950, through Jan...
...The Assembly will remain at its task, during the first and later sessions—no matter how long it may take to secure agreement—until a World Constitution has been drafted which it can recommend for adoption...
...The overriding aim will be the complete abolition of war...
...III We are living in a vast process of change...
...The World Constituent Assembly and the parallel Peoples' World Convention meeting in Geneva in December 1950, will be an event of the highest contemporary and historical importance...
...The course of events has made it necessary that world law be established now to protect mankind against destruction...
Vol. 14 • November 1950 • No. 11
