Something Is Born

San Francisco took the final flurries in stride. In its closing days the conference:

P: Forever barred Franco Spain from membership.

P: Made a place among the charter signatories for the new Polish Government.

P: Provided that members persistently violating the charter could be expelled.

P: Provided for a future constitutional convention to review and amend the charter within ten years.

P: Preserved the Assembly's right to discuss anything covered by the charter.

Pomp & Hollywood. The charter actually exists. The official English text was printed on 145 pages in 14-pt. Bodoni type and bound in blue leather. The longer Russian text was in smaller type (12-pt.).

Hollywood finally got in on San Francisco's show. The movies took over the signing ceremony this week. The stage in the Veterans' Building auditorium was lowered to orchestra-floor level. Indigo blue drapes circled the room; in the center was a huge circular table with a smoky blue base and cover. A royal blue runner led through a narrow opening in the drapes. Through this aperture the delegations would file, one at a time, to sit in gold-backed Louis Quinze chairs.

The signer's chair was a problem. The M. H. De Young Memorial Museum offered a massive, not-so-early-American number that Daniel Webster had used. But Webster's chair was too narrow for some of the delegates. So the officials selected another Louis Quinze chair for the signing.

Six Months More. Delegates for each of 50 member nations would sign the charter. Then each signer would also write his name on "Paper Two." This document sets up a Preparatory Commission, which will attend to certain necessary housekeeping chores. Somebody has to negotiate with the old League of Nations to take over files, functions. and probably some employes. A budget for the new organization must be worked out. And the ticklish question of a permanent seat must be settled. Geneva and The Hague appeared to be out of the running--too many ghosts there. Among the other possibilities: Prague, Oslo, Vancouver, San Francisco. Philadelphia.

The conference decided that the Preparatory Commission would meet in London, have a British Secretary. Lord Halifax suggested that it might be accommodated in Church House, on the south side of Dean's Yard, near Westminster Abbey. (The House of Commons met there after the Houses of Parliament were blitzed.) The Commission's work will probably last at least six months.

No delegate had the right to place his country's final approval on the charter. Since the charter is a master treaty, governments at home must ratify it before it becomes binding. Simplest ratification procedure would be Saudi Arabia's: King Ibn Saud had only to glance at it and say: "Afarim!" ("Well done!"). The British Cabinet is empowered to ratify treaties, but only after Parliament has had an opportunity to discuss them and raise any questions it wishes.

The Russian Constitution requires that treaties be ratified by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., which is always in session. The Presidium has never yet turned down a treaty.

The U.S. requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate for ratification. France may well be the last to ratify; it will not have a parliament until national elections are held. When 28 nations, including all of the Big Five, have ratified the charter, there will be something new in the world.

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