to draw up a peace resolution, and I wanted to put in it that the peoples of the world were in favor of peace. And the other countries just could not understand why I wanted to talk about the people. They said, "It is the governments." And finally, do you know what we had to do? We had two translations, the English and the French. They used the word in the English translation that I wanted, "people." They used in the French the word that described government. And they let it go at that, because they said that, after all, that was probably the same thing.

Now, I had it forcefully brought to my attention how difficult it was to understand what we really had in mind. We were trying to put over the idea that the people, after all, ought to be sovereign. At least they are here.

Mr. HOLMAN. Along that same line, Senator, because I don't want to extend my remarks too far, and I am perhaps a little too full of the subject, I was talking with Senator Pepper, of Pennsylvania, who is here on the American Law Institute. And I had known about it, but I checked it with him again.

The American Law Institute many years ago, long before the United Nations was ever thought of, long before there was any thought of making an attempt at declaration of rights for the entire world, undertook to draft a declaration on rights, as they called it, which would be a goal of aspiration for all peoples of the world. And after a year of deliberation, they came to the conclusion, as you just pointed out, that due to the difficulties of language, you can't translate the very word "liberty." With the background of three centuries of Anglo-Saxon development, you can't translate it. I mean, even if they used the same words in the language in translation, "libertas" means something entirely different than our word "liberty." And so the American Law Institute abandoned the effort, because of this very difficulty of language.

Now, during the recess, I have been able to locate, in substantiation in part of what I said about this reference to man being endowed by his Creator with certain rights, a news dispatch from Paris of December 7, 1948, which I will introduce in the record after reading it. And as I said this morning, it was in December of 1948 that they finally put this declaration together in Paris, without anyone in this country having a copy to look at. And I pleaded with General Marshall to get a copy of it for the American bar, as I was eleceted president of the American bar in September of that year.

This says:

The first world declaration of human rights was adopted 29 to 0 today by the United Nations Social Committee. It will be submitted at once to the U. N. assembly.

Dr. Charles Malik, of Lebanon, chairman of the committee, said: "Everything from God to social security was debated; the declaration excluded God but prominently included social security. Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt sought to correct him, saying, "We would not like to say that God was left out of the declaration entirely. It is true that the Deity's name does not appear, but the spirit of Christianity is embodied."

Brazil first sought to include reference to the Divinity. When this failed, the Netherlands tried to insert in the preamble reference to man's divine origin and immortal destiny. This, too, was withdrawn in face of opposition from some religions represented.

Earlier, in October, another news dispatch reads:

PARIS, October 9 (AP).—China and Britain asked Brazil today to withdraw a proposed reference to God in the first article of a United Nations draft convention on human rights.

Russia had objected to the proposal on the ground it demonstrated social backwardness. As originally drafted, the article says all humans are born "equal in rights and dignity." Brazil wanted it to say they "are born in the image and likeness of God." The U. N. Assembly's Social Committee recessed before acting.

As a further emphasis on this necessity of compromise which we have been facing, so far as our fundamental right to own private property in this country is concerned, which is one of our American rights, there is no provision included in the covenant, or to be included in the covenant.

Now, there is a provision of the declaration, and I cannot quote it exactly. I will not take the time. But it amounts to this, that there is a statement of the right to own property. But there is no provision that it shall not be taken for public use without just compensation. There is no provision at all prohibiting the Government from stepping in and taking a part of one's property or taking all of one's property if it is so desired.

Now, the result of this attitude of appeasement and compromise on the part of the State Department, in order to get agreement, has not only resulted in the elimination of such fundamental rights, as that to own property, but has resulted in a number of outstanding inconsistencies on the part of the State Department itself, of which the one regarding our concept of freedom of speech and of press is outstanding.

Our Bill of Rights, section 1, reads as follows:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So under our American concept of freedom of speech and of press, the only restriction that the law has imposed or can impose is where a particular court believes that in a specific case, and believes with the aid of a jury, there has been a flagrant abuse of freedom of speech or of press. Then the court in that particular case acts. As Justice Holmes once said:

Free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting "Fire" in a theater where there was no fire and causing a panic-the question in each case is whether the words are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger.

In other words, except for certain common-law limitations such as slander and libel and such judicial limitations as Holmes suggested in the "cry of fire" case, our forefathers recognized that "freedom of speech and of press" were so precious and so necessary to the continuation of our other freedoms under a free government that they specifically provided in the very first provision of the Bill of Rights that Congress should pass no law abridging freedom of speech or of press.

Now, this basic concept has been flaunted and repudiated by the present provisions of the proposed International Covenant on Human Rights.

Paragraph 3, article 14, of the covenant provides:

3. The right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to certain penalties, liabilities, and restrictions, but these shall be such only as are provided by law and are necessary for the protection of national security, public order, safety, health or morals, or of the rights, freedoms, or reputations of others. Which, as language, seems to sound somewhat reasonable.

You will immediately note that in paragraph 3, the right to seek, receive, and impart information and ideas, and therefore the right to freedom of speech, is subject to such penalties, liabilities, and restrictions as are provided by law and are necessary for the protection of national security, public order, safety, health or morals, or of the rights, freedoms, or reputations of others.

Senator FERGUSON. Do you not think that a nation such as the Soviet Union could really operate its present policy under those words? Mr. HOLMAN. I am coming to that.

I remind you that national security, public order, safety, health, and morals constitute the whole gamut of human activities in human relationships; so that under this language any administration in power with a majority vote in the Congress could provide by law such restriction or abridgement of freedom of speech or of press as it asserted necessary, regardless of the language of the first provision of the Bill of Rights.

But this is not all. Under an earlier article, article 2 of the Covenant, it is provided that:

in the case of a state of emergency officially proclaimed by the authorities, a State may take measures derogating from its obligations—

to preserve freedom of speech and of press and derogating from other freedoms like the right of peaceable assembly and the right to petition, as the state may think necessary.

In other words, under this section the whole right to freedom of speech and of press may be suspended not by law but when a state of emergency is officially declared by the authorities in power.

Well, we have lived in a state of officially declared emergencies frequently during the last 20 years, and seem still to be doing so. Senator FERGUSON. Almost continuously.

Mr. HOLMAN. Yes. Well, I thought I would be reserved and say "frequently."

Senator FERGUSON. I think that we have some matters that were passed in the early thirties that are still in existence under "states of emergency."

Mr. HOLMAN. That is right.

So, by declaring a state of emergency as provided in the present draft of the Covenant on Human Rights a President of the United States would be authorized to close all the newspapers in the United States, or such of those and in such places as he thought it wise to close, if he predicated it upon national security, public order, safety, and so on. This proviso in article 2 ratifies and approves the practice which has been followed in dictatorships from the earliest times.

Now, I was not here yesterday, but I understand Professor Chafee, of Harvard, defends this international compromising of our rights and their suspension in the case of an emergency by saying that we must join in an international effort to help others-and I suppose

that is other nations-rise to higher concepts in the field of law. But the fact is that under this theory the proposals being made to these other nations actually, from our point of view, constitute a phony covenant on human rights. For we certainly do not raise their situation, especially in dictatorship countries, if we agree to abandon our concept and agree that in a state of emergency the government in power may suspend these rights.

Under this provision-and my Canadian friends pointed this out to me several times. And, by the way, we are working in fairly close liaison with the Canadian bar. Mr. Schweppe and I will go to Canada to meet their committee on the 20th and 21st of June, prior to their annual meeting in Vancouver in August.

But under this provision, as was pointed out first by some of my Canadian friends, if Canada, who has no similar constitutional privilege to ours, signs a treaty which in terms permits the suspension of these freedoms by a mere declaration of emergency, then we can no longer point the finger at Stalin and the Politburo or at Franco in Spain or at Mr. Peron in Argentina for closing the newspapers by executive decree on the basis of an alleged conspiracy, because they can point to the covenant which we have signed and say, "We are only operating under that."

So instead of helping to raise these other nations, we merely are confirming the people of those countries in the situation which the dictators have set up for them.

The same argument is being put forth by the State Department now with respect to this complete negation of the American concept of freedom of speech and of press as was put forth in the case of the Declaration on Human Rights and the Genocide Conventionthat it is difficult to get agreement among 58 or more nations and to bring them to a common point of view without compromising some of our basic American concepts.

Now, I haven't time to go into it here, but undoubtedly when you hear other witnesses they will say, "Oh, well, we have taken care of everything Mr. Holman says, because we are putting in a provision now, or we are considering a provision, in the covenant that nothing therein contained shall in anywise detract from greater rights in any particular country of the contracting state.

Senator FERGUSON. Who is going to determine the matter of "greater"?

Mr. HOLMAN. I am coming to that. And there is another word in there, "guaranteed" by the law of a contracting state. When you take that apart, you see, in the first place our rights are not guaranteed. They reside first in the individual citizen. Our Bill of Rights is a bill of prohibitions, not a bill of grants. So our rights are not guaranteed in that sense.

And then it says, "guaranteed by the law of the contracting state." Well, the contracting state here is the United States. And our rights are embedded in our concept of law; and so that language does not take care of it. But that language now is being used in some quarters to indicate that we don't need a constitutional amendment for this. They can write some sort of language on that in the treaty. And you will find that pretty carefully analyzed in my main statement that I gave you earlier.

I said that the State Department was finding itself now in an inconsistent position with respect to many of these matters. For it is hard to reconcile the present position of the State Department on freedom of speech and of press-where, if the press releases are correct, they are going along with these provisions in the Covenant on Human Rights with the very sound position which the State Department itself announced in November 1949. At that time, there was an attempt made to draft a convention on freedom of information, a separate convention covering this important matter of freedom of speech and of press. And at that time, as contained in the State Department Bulletin of November 14, 1949, the State Department said, and I quote-and this is better than I could say it:

Governments, or more accurately administrations of the moment, have from time immemorial claimed the power to judge matters of this nature for their citizens, and too often the test has been the interest of the administration rather than that of the people. Many of the allegations of misconduct or inadequate performance leveled by some governments at the free press cannot, therefore, be taken at face value.

Yet, whatever be its true source, the threat to the traditional American concept of the free press cannot be ignored, especially at a time when the totalitarian thesis is exerting its maximum pull.

In the present titanic struggle for the minds of entire peoples, this debate presents a great challenge to the information enterprises of the United States and to our Government. The challenge demands renewed efforts to demonstrate the courage of our democratic convictions by convincing others-

and I interpolate that that means other nations.

through example and discussion that in the case of freedom of press as with other civil liberties the price of freedom is small indeed when compared with the terrible cost of the regimented society.

That is the State Department.

Regardless of that public pronouncement of the position of the State Department of 1949 in defense of freedom of speech and of press, the State Department is now embarked on a policy of appeasement, and by its proposed approval of the provisions of the covenant, with this little language thrown in about greater rights, which I think you will find on analysis doesn't amount to anything, apparently intends, as it has done in other matters, to sacrifice the fundamental interests and rights of the American people in order to secure an international agreement.

The State Department is apparently now prepared to follow as to the covenant the same course of appeasement as it followed with respect to the provisions of the declaration and of the Genocide Convention. And only an appropriate constitutional amendment will prevent such compromise and appeasement with regard to American rights and eliminate the risk that through "treaty law" our basic American rights may be bargained away in attempts to show our good neighborliness and in attempts to indicate to the rest of the world our spirit of brotherhood.

Now, I think somebody told me there had been some testimony here that, well, the Senate of the United States is the bulwark. But it woudd require a monitoring and a watching of every one of these treaties that are coming through in a way that never occured in the course of history.

I think if you will write up to Lake Success you will find that the number of treaties that have been proposed will cover several volumes. They haven't come on yet, but they are in the mill. And I would think