PREFACE

With this issue International Conciliation appears as a publication of the Division of Intercourse and Education of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. This is a change in form rather than in substance. The work of the American Association for International Conciliation has for many years been under the direction and control of the Division, but it has seemed best to carry on this work under two separate organizations. There have been many persons who were willing to associate themselves with a society whose aim was International Conciliation but who objected to the phrase International Peace thinking it involved them in some objectionable form of pacifism. The war and its problems have created an entirely new situation. The whole world is now committed sentimentally and intellectually, except as to what Mr. Roosevelt used to call its lunatic fringe, to a policy of international peace. Therefore, in the interest of administrative simplicity and economy the work of the American Association for International Conciliation is now merged with that of the Division.

L'Association de la Conciliation Internationale was the cherished project of the late Baron d'Estournelles de Constant and was founded by him in Paris in 1905. It included in its membership many leading French statesmen, publicists and scholars and, under the untiring and devoted direction of Baron d'Estournelles de Constant himself, it quickly won for itself a distinct and well recognized place among the forces which helped to mould public opinion in France. In 1907 Mr. Carnegie, to whom Baron d'Estournelles de Constant was attached by ties of intimate friendship, furnished funds by which an American branch of this Association was formed and supported in the United States. In April 1907, in a four page leaflet, Baron d'Estournelles de Constant presented the program of work of the American Association for International Conciliation and invited those in sympathy with that program to join the Association. This leaflet which bears the motto of the parent society, Pro Patria per Orbis Concordiam, was Document No. 1 of the series which has now reached, with this issue, Document No. 200.

In 1910 the support of this Association was taken over by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace which had been founded in that year by the benefaction of Mr. Carnegie. Branches were subsequently formed in Germany, England, Spain and a number of the larger South American Republics. The World War made concerted effort on the part of the various branches and of the parent society in Paris almost impossible and conditions following the war have made the continuance of the American branch as a separate organization unnecessary. It was decided therefore, with the entire consent and approval of the Président Fondateur, to dissolve the corporate existence of the American Association for International Conciliation. The parent society will continue as l'Association de la Conciliation Internationale unless it be decided otherwise by those who have taken up the task laid down by the late Baron d'Estournelles de Constant on May 15, 1924. The announcement of his death was received with profound grief by those who knew him personally and intimately. He has been both the ideal and the inspiration of all who have been working for a better international understanding, and he gave most generous and valuable assistance both to Mr. Carnegie in formulating his plans for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and to the Trustees in carrying them out. To those who have been associated with him, in whatever capacity, in the work to which he gave his life's devotion, his going brings irreparable loss.

The list of two hundred publications to be found at the end of this document tells the story of the work of the American Association for International Conciliation. These documents present the views of distinguished leaders of opinion of many countries on vital international problems; they reproduce the texts of official treaties, diplomatic notes and draft plans for such international projects as the Permanent Court of International Justice, and they are a recognized reliable source of information for men and women interested in law, education, ethics, economics and government. They are widely used by scholars and research students and are frequently quoted and referred to in books and periodicals. They are of course valuable aids to instruction by teachers in colleges and universities. It cannot be doubted that they have materially contributed to that more intelligent international understanding which of itself makes for the advancement of the good order and happiness of the world.