WORLD COURT: Elevation of Kellogg

Next time nations go to war, some will surely try to bring others before the World Court, will invoke the Briand-Kellogg pact under which nearly all governments— have “renounced war as aninstrument of national policy” (TIME, July 30; Sept. 3, 1928). Last week the Court’s bench was happily packed in the pact’s favor by electing to it Frank Billings Kellogg himself. Well may naughty nations come to dread the twitching frown of this small, wizened Galahad of Peace. Election was by the Assembly and Council of the League of Nations,†sitting separately and secretly last week in Swiss Geneva (see col. 2). Of 51 assembly ballots cast by as many nations, League tellers threw out four as “defective and void.” An easy but not spectacular winner, Mr. Kellogg received 30 votes. How many League Council ballots Mr. Kellogg received no Councilmen knew, for their votes are never announced. Bouquets. First of League statesmen to toss a bouquet at Court Judge Kellogg (who business-tripped last week from Washington to Manhattan, en route to his home in St. Paul, Minn.) was French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand, co-author of the pact. Cried he: “I cannot forget the great part Mr. Kellogg has taken in the establishment of the mechanism of peace in the world. In his new functions he will find every opportunity to make the most beneficial use both of his great ability and his great name. I am very glad to see the United States maintain its tradition of sending men of the highest rank to the Court.”

In Washington meticulous Statesman Henry Lewis Stimson, successor to Mr. Kellogg as Secretary of State, took care lest M. Briand be literally believed, lest any U. S. citizen think that President Hoover or the Administration had “sent” Mr. Kellogg tripping into the wildwood of European entanglements.

“Mr. Kellogg was in no sense a candidate of this Government,” stated Statesman Stimson, “but we may nevertheless express our pleasure.”

A catch in last week’s ballot is that Judge Kellogg was elected to serve only until Dec. 31, 1930; that is, to fill out the unexpired term of Charles Evans Hughes, who was himself elected to fill the unexpired term of John Bassett Moore (TIME, May 7, 1928). Mr. Hughes, of course, resigned from the World Court bench to become Chief Justice of the U. S. Next week the League is expected to re-elect Judge Kellogg to the World Court with solemn ceremony, start him out on a regular nine-year term of his own dating from Jan. 1, 1931.

—Exceptions: Argentina, Brazil. †Candidates are nominated by the “Hague Court,” the old permanent court of arbitration for which Steelman Andrew Carnegie built the Peace Palace at The Hague. Its national groups nominate, and the League council and assembly elect, judges to the “World Court” or Permanent Court of International Justice.