VALID FILE
THE ELLSWORTH DECLARATION
4 September, 1953
"There is no first step to world government. World government is
the first step."
- Emery Reves, Anatomy of Peace
"As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war
is inevitable. There is no salvation for civilization, or even the
human race, other than the creation of a world government."
- Albert Einstein
(Delivered at the City Hall, Ellsworth, Maine, U.S.A by Garry Davis.)
Note: The page numbers have been left in this text for reference purposes.
Good Evening, dear friends:
This meeting has its origin about five years ago in Paris when I
walked out of the United States Embassy as a sort of political
nonentity, or stateless person. My story, that is, what led to that
action, what happened afterwards, and where I find myself today
have become matters of public interest, if only because anyone who
has the audacity to deal with nation states directly as if he were
equal or even superior in sovereignty, whether he is considered a
fool or a sage, is at least an object of curiosity.
It is my experience however that much misunderstanding and even
misrepresentation has occurred in the public mind concerning me.
This is, to a great extent, my own fault. I have found myself unable
many times to explain clearly and concisely the basic reasons for my
actions. Perhaps I shouldn't have tried. Actions speak for
themselves, and so-called reasons often confuse as much as clarify.
But
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also, the general press often print but half the story or sensationalize
what is ordinarily quite a commonplace happening to entice the
buying public. Flashy headlines replace objective and full coverage.
This in turn gives rise to the cry of publicity seeker, and the man
stands condemned whatever his motives or sincerity. Mostly
however I think that the subject itself is confusing and lacking in
precedent, the subject being the wholeness of individual man, or his
inherent total sovereignty with full authority and rights contrasted
today against the seeming absolutism of the sovereign state
expressed in nationalism. . .and his inherent cooperative urge as
contrasted with a fiercely competitive economy. . .how he can
reassert himself in modern terms, what techniques he can use, what
philosophy he can call upon, what moral fibre he can evoke in the
face of giant immoral pressures and fears, what historical precedents
he has, and finally what human support he can command around
him, both individually and institutionally. The subject in short is
unlimited man's revolt against a limited society and demands full
command of every ounce of an individual's spiritual, intellectual, and
physical stature. In the light of this problem, my personal
limitations become glaringly obvious.
But once more I find it necessary to speak in public knowing full well
the dangers just mentioned. I may confuse as much as clarify: the
press may mock or cry publicity-seekers, or merely ignore; and
again I may reveal my limitations in not embracing the full subject.
But it is necessary first of all because I find myself in my homeland,
America, and in fact in the very seat of my birth, Hancock County, in
very unusual circumstances, and I want those about me, my fellow
Americans, to know what I am about; exactly what these
circumstances are, and what I intend to do about them; and
secondly, I feel a duty and responsibility to my many friends in
Europe and throughout the world who have supported me in the past
and shown me their hearts and minds with openness and deep
conviction, a duty which I have not always fulfilled and a
responsibility which I have not always accepted, but which tonight I
will try to fulfill and accept to the full measure of my ability.
To introduce my subject, let me say that though you and I here are
friends and from the same soil, we are separated by as wide a gulf as
man has ever artificially created. I was a bomber pilot during the
last war, and I first discovered this artificial gulf between men when
flying over Germany bombing German civilians and cities. Till then I
hadn't thought much about my fellowman, or myself as a member of
a world community. I had been too busy growing up, having fun,
and trying to earn a living. But in that starkly realistic situation,
behind all the emotion and hysteria, I was literally forced to
consider, for the first time I might add, the seeming foolishness of
one group of human beings dropping bombs on another group, all
members of the same human family. Certainly like them I had good
reasons for my participation in the fight. Fascism was a public
menace, a social disease, a cancerous scourge, and had to be wiped
out at all costs. . .even
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at the cost of my death and that of my buddies-in-arms. But even
so, I had to wonder what was wrong with the organization of our
human community when a social disease like Fascism was allowed to
become so plague-like that only an opposing plague, no matter how
justified, could halt its advance. I confess my political naivete while
flying that engine of destruction, but I couldn't really understand
why our leaders had let things get that far.
I wasn't alone in this wondering of course. Millions of young people
were rudely shocked into the naked awareness that the social plague
called war was a real part of their life. If nothing else, we were
forced to start thinking about our responsibilities in this regard.
After the war I returned to my profession in the theatre. But the
wondering continued underneath. Though we had a supranational
organization called the United Nations supposedly to solve the
problems of war and peace, poverty and plenty, the still absolute
sovereign states, after a flurry of postwar disarmament, continued
more hysterically than ever their superarmament race, especially my
own and Russia, developing superbombs and super methods of
killing off human beings. Taxes were increasing on individual
citizens, relief budgets were cut as defense budgets were increased--
though eminent scientists kept telling us that there was no defense
against the absolute weapons now developed-- more and more
people went hungry, or were illclothed, or illhoused, refugees were
dealt with apathetically or begrudgingly, the world's children were
neglected, and general fear and insecurity were becoming
commonplace.
Was it possible, I asked myself, that once again I was to be uprooted
from my everyday life, this time to become a part of an even greater
plague called World War III? Hadn't we learned anything from the
last war, or the one before that, or the multitude of wars stretching
back throughout man's bloody history? Does each generation have to
go through this superfoolishness? Are we all so bankrupt of reason
and moral fibre that we can't live in peace and cooperation with one
another in one physical world? These questions and many more
pounded at me with increasing urgency during the years of '46 and
'47. What should I do? I kept asking myself. Where could the
common man like me, the man-in-the-street, the fundamental
integer without which there is no society, register his protest against
this insanity? Where could I vote against war and poverty, and for
peace and wellbeing? Who represented me, not only in the United
States, but in the world community as well? In the U.S., there is law
and order, government, a central control or brain, direct
representatives of the people therein, if only in a political sense.
Outside there is chaos and anarchy, a jungle world wherein raw force
is the deciding factor, where individuals are helpless, and where only
armies move in sinister and secret patterns. There is no World
Parliament, no world constitution, no world law, or world economy,
in short, no world brain or government. Instead on our one planet,
there are about 80 separate and fully-sovereign political and
economic units, all attempting to govern and provide securi-
P. 23
ty for their individual citizens. Some are rich, some poor; some are
large, some small. But all are absolute in their political power over
their citizens, just as the original 13 American colonies or States were
in 1780.
It's as if your body had 80 or so separate, and uncoordinated
compartments, each with its individual command posts or brain, and
each acting at crosspurposes and giving opposing orders to the
various organs. What would be the result? Well obviously, we call
such an uncoordinated man an idiot, and because we know he can't
provide for himself, but eventually will either starve or be destroyed
in some way, we put him into an institution for his and the public
good.
But an objective observer on Mars, or indeed even on Earth, might
very well apply the same idiocy to the organism we call humanity
and of which we are all integral parts or cells whether we like it or
not. He would see quite clearly that it lacks a unified coordinating
center, or world brain. . .or government.
But what about the United Nations? Isn't that set up to do the
coordinating job, to be the brain of humanity? The answer of course,
divorced of sentiment and ideals, is implicit in the actions of the very
nations which are members of the U.N. Behind the inspiring ideals,
the noble convictions, and imposing facade, and discounting the
paralyzed specialized agencies set up to deal with real human
problems, or the educational aspects, the United Nations is merely a
meeting place for the representatives of some, not all of the
nationstates to try to win world public opinion for their particular
interests. As such, it is an effective smokescreen behind which the
most powerful nations carry on their absolute nationalistic policies.
In short, it is neither united, nor is it inclusive.
I am aware in making these remarks of the high regard that the UN
as such is held by many here in the US, but it is vitally necessary to
divorce ourselves from false sentiment and vain idealism so that the
naked reality of the world's condition can be faced if just and
reasonable solutions to human problems are to be found. Certainly
the United Nations is of immense value to me, the utterly neutral
man, for by it I can see in startling clarity just what we lack and
need. I might add that my experience indicates that there are few
within the UN itself who are not being made increasingly aware of
this lack and need.
After I became aware of the world's basic anarchic condition, which
was certainly a spiritual as well as a political and economic anarchy,
I like millions of others, was faced with the personal problem of
what was my responsibility to the total world community? How
could I relate myself directly and realistically with my fellowman,
spiritually, socially and physically, not only as a protest, but as a
practical way to fill in the vacuous area of world anarchy? I was
truly an American, by birth, by upbringing, by forefathers, by
conviction and by ideals, but I wanted no part of nationalism. But
could the two be separated? And if so, what then was the position of
the individual who managed such an unprecedented separation? In
other words, how could he make an effective protest against a
nationalism turned violent which thwarted and perverted
humanitarian tendencies
P. 24
till men turned into mobs killing each other mercilessly and at the
same time build his life on the constructive principle of social
cooperation rather than on the jungle competition for bare
necessities he saw all around him?
I wanted a corporate or federal or unitive world government to
resolve the social organizational problem which in turn would
resolve the economic problem with a world unitive economy; but
first of all, I wanted a spiritual kinship, an awareness of a
community of men derived from the same source, one human
Organism, One Total Man, or more popularly, a world religion or
universal church based on brotherhood, truth and love. From this, I
knew and felt, would flow the other worldly institutions. Naive and
oversimplified perhaps, but nonetheless sincere and heartfelt.
In personal revolt against nationalism to which I no longer wanted to
contribute, and against raw competition with my fellowmen which I
didn't understand and wasn't trained for, I went to Paris in May of
1948, and on the 25th of that month, before a U.S. Vice-Consul in the
Embassy on the Champs Elysee, I took the formal oath of
renunciation of my national citizenship, which is allowed by the
Nationality Act of 1940. I did not deny being an American, which
was an inherent part of me anyway, but I declared what I truly was
in a larger worldly sense: . . .I claimed to be a world citizen.
This of course was no new declaration, no original thought. Socrates
made it. Tom Paine made it. Most philosophers, sages, and spiritual
leaders have affirmed its principles of unity in one way or another.
But there is no monopoly on such a universal truth. And so, now a
common man had made it. To me, world citizenship expressed
positively and clearly man's individual wholeness or completeness,
his personal uniqueness and individuality, plus his fundamental
unity with all other men, spiritually as well as physically.
The general press however, mockingly referred to me as "the self-
styled world citizen." It is a fitting commentary on our present-day
political institutions when an ordinary citizen must style himself that
which they presume to represent, but cannot, and then be mocked
for it in the nation's press.
Here in America, where national citizenship is idealized and
sentimentalized beyond all reason, I was publicly ridiculed. Many
called me simply a crackpot with a harebrained idea; others thought
I was merely one more publicity seeker of which America
apparently had hundreds of thousands, though this was a pretty
desperate way merely to get publicity. Others, less emotional and
more objective, called me simply unrealistic, or impractical, or ahead
of the times, though at the same time they usually were obliged to
add that the world was in pretty much of a mess and something
should be done. But generally, I was considered merely one more
symbol of youthful confusion, and a sort of international orphan. . .or
world waif. . .and very unAmerican.
I argued that to be an American meant infinitely more than just to
be a United States citizen. Americans, I said, held fast to principles
of liberty, democracy,
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public welfare, and world peace, principles for which my forefathers
suffered persecution, worked and died and upon which the nation
was founded. Who was the true American, I asked, the man who
stood for the above principles, or the chauvinistic nationalist or war
profiteer? But my voice was drowned out in derision.
I must add here that I did not ask others to follow or even not to
follow my particular action. I merely said that it was my way, and
that if others were concerned about the same problems, they must
find their particular way of renouncing absolutist nationalism and
extending their loyalty to the total world community since at that
time there was no one central and neutral organization to which all
could belong as universal as humanity itself.
But even so, my birthplace hadn't changed, nor my upbringing, nor
my ancestors. Also when I dropped my hand no longer a US citizen,
I was no wiser, no more industrious, no more patient. The sun still
shone on me, and the rain still fell on me; I still had to eat, breathe
and work; I still like music and dancing and the theatre; I could still
laugh and cry, or be serious or tell a joke; my friends were still my
friends, and people who didn't like me anyway, still didn't like me
anyway. In short, I was still very much me, despite my loss of
national citizenship, and still very much a part of the total human
community, and in fact, now a more direct part. In the real things, I
hadn't changed a whit.
But like the pebble dropping on the surface of the water, I did make
a ripple...on the surface. And to many people here in America
especially, failing to distinguish the surface from the actual body of
water, or the illusion of reality from the Real Itself, here in this
dualistic society, I had dared to call into question the fundamental,
the essential, and so, the secure. To these, US citizenship was
absolute security, despite A-bombs, and two world wars. Also I had
renounced "the American way of life" meaning principally the
security of physical comforts and even luxuries. And so I was
considered an outcast and a heretic on two counts, politically and
physically. Morally, few in America, questioned my motives or
actions. Needless to say, I was a great trial to my family and friends
during this period.
Well, what happens to a man who finds himself plumb in the middle
of the world anarchy, where there are no political representatives at
any level of government, where no authority is prepared to accept or
identify you, where you have no stable home and no legal right to
live, where you have no influence because you have no political
status and so where friends are either afraid or reluctant to come to
your aid, where human rights are laughed at, and one is mocked for
presuming to affirm even that he or she is a human being, where
every petty official becomes your master before whom you must
bow and scrape if you find yourself obliged to ask for some meager
necessity till you are screaming inside and ready either to kill, or ask
God's help, torn between the two, where indignity is mixed with
contempt and pity, where life is a series of waiting-in-line at a
P. 26
window marked "Alien" or "Stranger" behind which sits an
indifferent clerk with only rubber stamps in front of him which
determine your very existence, where the human spirit is crushed
out of all shape and recognition until it withers of its own accord,
where finally apathy and resignation nibble dumbly at the mind and
heart till hope is gone.
Is this an exaggeration, coming purely from my imagination? Is the
situation so bad? Ask the over 15,000,000 refugees in Germany,
many living in madeover concentration camps. Ask the hundreds of
thousands of stateless people in France and England who are allowed
to live there but legally not allowed to work. Ask the North and
South Koreans made homeless by a "foreign" power's war. Ask the
stateless people of Africa and Asia whose very homes, miserable
hovels that they are, are owned by colonial masters, and whose
rights as human beings are ridiculed and scorned till they seethe in
indignation and revolt and are ready to accept any tyrant who
promises them freedom and more bread.
Ask me even.
Directly after my renunciation, my learning about these things began.
The little clerk at the French police station had fifteen stamps in
front of her, and nowhere to use them when I presented myself at
her desk. She couldn't handle an ex-U.S. citizen who called himself a
world citizen, born in America, yet residing in France, and without
papers of any kind. That situation was in no lawbook or regulations
manual she knew of. Legally I was outside the framework of the
sovereign state of France. But physically I was inside. I had
committed no crime or harmed anyone. My interests were purely
humanitarian, positive, and outgoing, yet, being outside the law, I
was considered a criminal for merely existing and subject to
imprisonment. Such is the extraordinary position of a man caught in
the lawless area outside of national sovereignty. Such also is the
position that each powerful nation finds itself in in regard to other
nations. It becomes suspect by another nation simply because there
is no legal control of its actions by the other nation. By stepping
outside the control of any nation-state, I discovered gradually that I
had actually become sovereign in much the same way. And so I was
suspect by that frustrated civil servant and by every government
official I came up against thereafter. Finally in some desperation to
keep me from jail, she stamped the back of a letter I had from the
American Embassy in receipt of my passport. This gave me three
pseudo-legal months to live in France. I asked her what I should do
after three months. She shrugged and waved me out. After all, it
wasn't her affair.
Just before the three months were up, the United Nations took over
the Palais de Chaillot in Paris declaring that property international
territory in a symbolic ceremony between Robert Shumann and
Trygve Lie. Facing jail in France if I remained there, and jail in any
other country I went to, I was literally forced to seek political
sanctuary at the headquarters of this highest political authority in
the world. It was the world organization after all; I would be
privileged to
P. 27
present it with its first real citizen.
I remained on the steps of one of the U.N. Buildings for 6 days and
nights. During this time, the curious but kind people of Paris
supplied me with bread, cheese, fruit, and vin ordinaire. During that
period I wrote a petition to the delegates through Mr. Lie asking for
simple recognition of world citizenship. On the seventh day, I
received my answer. I was expelled forcibly. The U.N. Secretariat,
not having any police, requested the French Ministry of the Interior
to please "invade" their so-called international territory and remove
this piece of international flotsam. So on Sept. 17th about 50 French
policemen wearing their sternest looks, came in, took me against my
will and deposited me in France again, a distance of about 10 yards.
The U.N. could have done the job of course, but it might have looked
a bit foolish for a squad of U.S. or Russian marines carrying out such
a nonmilitary objective.
This somewhat ludicrous removal was the U.N.'s way of saying to me,
"We don't represent you, so how can you expect us to recognize
world citizenship? But further, we can't represent you because
you're a stateless person, and we're composed only of states. As
such, we, the United Nations, represent division and fear, and
eventual war, whereas you, a neutral human being, obviously
represent unity and peace. You have a sort of human sovereignty
inherent in you, whereas we have only state sovereignty to link us,
but contrarily we have private or vested interests to protect at all
costs; you don't, because you have nothing to lose. You are able to
take our ideals, aspirations and hopes and apply them directly in
human affairs. We are unable to do so because they conflict with our
sovereign statehood. Now you can see why we must get rid of you
even to calling in a national police force and facing ridicule for doing
so. Your naive but natural request for recognition of world
citizenship exposes our limitations, and that we can't afford."
This is the major lesson I have learned. The world's greatest
statesmen, the ablest politicians, the national policy makers, the
Presidents, Kings, Congressmen, Parliamentarians, and all lesser state
servants, can only mark time until we, on the very bottom of the
pile, the socalled man-in-the-street, the John and Jane Does of the
world, the simple human being with nothing to lose but his fears,
make a concerted, cooperative, and determined effort to move into
world peace and prosperity. By "into" I mean we must actually
declare freedom and security an inherent part of our essential
humanity, and then apply it scientifically, technically and spiritually
in our daily lives. Until that is done, the statesman remains trapped
between principle and practice; he has nothing to lead or govern
except that which exists, and we all remain chained to our
insecurities, poverties, and fears.
That concerted and cooperative one world movement until now has
been undefined and unorganized. But it has been generating in
parts. Hundreds of non-governmental international organizations
reflecting every facet of man's interests
P. 28
including innumerable peace and welfare organizations are ready for
a coordinated, cooperative, corporate one world organization.
Millions of ordinary people everywhere are certainly ready to
recognize their essential kinship, to cooperate in harmony, share
their labor and services, pool their resources, both intellectual and
physical, and benefit each other individually and mutually. Many
small nations even are ready to relinquish a part of their sovereignty
to such a supranational authority having provisions in their
constitutions for such.
I myself quite by circumstance became a focal point for such a
common and neutral meeting-ground in Europe in 1948-49 and '50.
After my formal ejection from the U.N. territory, and from
subsequent events such as an organized interruption from the U.N.
balcony on Nov. 22nd wherein with friends I asked that humanity be
given a representative in the affairs directly affecting us, and after
two large meetings in Paris which were attended to overflowing, a
spontaneous one world and world citizenship popular movement
came into being which was genuinely planet-wide.
I was flooded with hundreds of thousands of letters from all corners
of the globe, and from peoples of all nations, colors, sects, races,
occupations, and origins. Only the Americans and Russians were cool
to or skeptical of the idea, not because of the American or Russian
people themselves, but because their leaders were too busy fearing,
insulting and arming against each other to pay much attention to
such an unrealistic third force as one world and world citizenship,
especially if it began in the giant middle world between the two
opposing forces. "Not economically practical," said the American
businessman; "Not politically practical," said the Russian communist.
I was personally attacked from Pravda and the U.S. press alike, one
with vitriol and personal character assassination, the other wish
patronizing spankings or veiled suggestions of mental derangement.
Pravda called me a U.S. bought dupe, exporting American world
government along with detective stories and powdered eggs. The
U.S. press inferred that I was naively and unwittingly playing into
the hands of the Communists by creating a giant peace movement in
the West, and why didn't I go to Russia to begin my movement there,
or if not, then come home and go into a defense plant...while I was
being psychoanalyzed.
But to the rest of mankind, caught in the middle of this two-
dimensional dialectic between two mighty physical forces, the reality
of one world was overwhelming and the fact of world citizenship was
grounded in truth.
But even if there were millions of one worlders and world citizens,
very few agreed on general one world strategy and practically no
one agreed on world citizenship tactics.
From the podium of the General Assembly of the United Nations on
Dec. 10, 1948, came an appeal for help, which contained both one
world strategy and world citizenship tactics. It came in the form of a
document called The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In
effect, it was the greatest mandate to organize ourselves
P. 29
rationally ever given to mankind as a corporate body. On the other
hand, it implied with uncompromising clarity that the United Nations
as such is not that rational organization. The mandate was given to
everyone on the planet. No one was excluded. When declared, it was
hailed as a milestone in man's collective efforts to achieve freedom
and security. But so far, five years later, it has not achieved freedom
and security. So far, it's just another piece of paper with stirring
words on it. Why is this? Why didn't men and women take this
document, affirm the rights therein, and oblige their leaders to have
them properly secured in a world organization? The reason is
simple. But it may be a hard one to accept. Human rights apply only
to humans, and until you and I throughout the world declare
ourselves as such and organize that declaration so that wise and
practical leaders can represent us as human beings, we can only
expect less than human treatment in world affairs from our present
leaders.
The very first article is a tool of mighty power cutting through
prejudice, dogma, artificial beliefs, and general ignorance like a giant
scythe cuts through weeds. For it is the expression of the Prime Law
of Unity which binds all men as brothers both spiritually and
naturally. All the other articles flow from it. It throws into bold
relief all those who divide men artificially. It says: All men are born
free and equal in dignity and rights; they are endowed with reason
and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of
brotherhood..
Here is no sectarianism, nor chauvinism. First of all here is the
affirmation of the spiritual truth that all men are directly connected
with their divine source or origin through individual conscience. This
is the ontological approach to religion, that is, that each and every
human being is immediately and intimately related to the Spirit or
Deity, and can perceive that relationship intuitively without outside
intervention. In other words, it reaffirms Christ's words, "The
kingdom of God is within you," or Socrates' admonition to "Know
thyself," or the Hindu Bhagavad Gita's constant references to the All
Self in every man. Then this article affirms that all men are endowed
with reason, or the ability to think and solve problems of physical
survival and social relationships. What is this but a clear go-ahead to
organize in a reasonable manner the affairs of our common social
community? But how much reason is applied today in the political
circles of the world? How reasonable is this foolish national pride,
this organized manufacture of lies and half-truth and artificially
created hates between tribes of humans in the world community,
this hypocrisy called diplomacy which any child could expose, and
which wouldn't last a minute in a town meeting? How much reason
is there to areas of surplus food rotting on wharfs and railroad
sidings and other areas of pitiful and unnecessary starvation, or
periods when millions are unemployed, yet factories lay idle because
it doesn't pay to produce? It is needless to go on. The facts are
unlimited to demonstrate that not reason but utter foolishness
actually governs our world community despite our most fervent
aspirations and lip-service to ideals.
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But if men are reasonable and guided by conscience, it is clear that
men in general have no representatives in the world area. No one
yet speaks for humanity in toto. We, as a world's people, are
inarticulate, inchoate even, because we are unorganized. The
Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognizes this for it gives us
the green light to organize a world electorate to elect such world
representatives from our midst. Article 21 (3) says: The will of the
people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this shall
be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be
universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by
equivalent free voting procedures.
There is no mention of what people. . .just the people. That only
means all the people there are. Do you begin to see, however, how
this One People is denied in the very council chambers of this so-
called world organization? That the reality of human community
includes not only all those nations and peoples of the UN but also
Germans, Italians, Africans, Ceylonese, Japanese, Chinese, Rumanians,
Bulgarians, and of course all stateless people and those under colonial
domination? In short, everybody?
We all belong to this One People whether we like it or not and
despite our external differences. Though I am an American,
technically I am a stateless person, so I fit into the World's People
category directly, with no intervening citizenship. This is by no
means a unique situation, but in fact quite common. And that, while
it might seem to be a sign of utter chaos and despair, actually is a
condition of great hope. In other words, there are millions like me
with nothing to lose.
But what about our collective will. Is there such a thing? This is the
most difficult thing I have experienced to make people believe. . .that
in fact everyone wants just about the same things. These are
expressed usually by slogans such as world peace, universal
wellbeing, and personal freedom. But slogans like this have hidden
other things. So people have become skeptical and cynical and bitter.
It is the disease of our generation. But nonetheless, the collective
will for such things exists and in greater quantity and power than
any single man dreams.
If this is true, how then is it to be gathered, proclaimed, manifested,
and secured? The Universal Declaration in Article 28 gives us a clue.
It says that: "Everyone is entitled to the social and international
order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this declaration
can be fully realized." In other words, social and international
order, not anarchy, are conditions under which rights pertaining to
all human beings alone can be secured. Order of course means law
and government. International order means international law and
government.
Obviously, there is no such thing today.
Human rights and freedoms apply only to select few today. Yet
Article 2 states that: "Everyone is entitled to the rights and
freedoms set forth in this declaration, without distinctions of any
kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other
opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status."
This only affirms what any reasonable man and every mother knows
from time immem-
P. 31
orial, that all men and women are indeed members of the same
human community, and that subsequently there are no second-class
world citizens.
No second-class world citizens! Do you realize what that means? It
means that as well as being Greek, French, German, Russian, Indian,
Chinese, Brazilian, Yugoslavian, Swedish, Italian, Malayan, Japanese,
American or any other group, as well as being white, brown, black,
red or yellow, as well as being an artisan or a craftsman, a merchant
or a technician, a common worker or a king, a housewife or a queen,
a national citizen or a stateless person, a man or a woman, a
democrat or a republican, a Catholic or a Protestant, or Hindu, or
Buddhist, or Moslem or Taoist or Jew, we are all united in world
citizenship because we're all united in freedoms and human rights, as
yet uncodified in world law.
There are other rights defined. But these few mentioned are enough
to go ahead full steam with the actual organization of our one
humanity.
If you agree with me up to this point-- and I have really said
nothing very extraordinary, nothing new certainly, perhaps even
things which are so obvious and simple that they don't bear
repeating-- but if we are agreed at least in principle, let us be
convinced as I am, from bitter and sometimes humiliating
experience, that we must now help ourselves. No one will hand us
freedom and security on a silver platter. No one can. Who can
exercise your reason or conscience for you? Who can put them to
work but you? Each man and woman here is absolutely and solely
responsible for his or her thoughts and actions regarding his or her
personal welfare. Let us first then secure ourselves deep within our
own reason and conscience for only then will we be able to find a
practical way to the wide glorious world of sovereign humanity.
In short, we must personally, each one of us, recognize ourselves as
individually sovereign, that is, a world unto ourselves, an
authority, sure, capable, self-motivated, self-contained, and self-
governed, a full awareness of that part of us which is conscience and
its servant reason. Let us realize fully that each one of us throughout
the world, endowed with this very same conscience which links us all
to the same Spirit or Origin, and reason, which links us all to each
other, is in real fact then a world sovereign, and as such stands
whole and free in the one community of men, above nations,
sectional prides, narrow prejudices and jealousies, a World Patriot.
This is what I wish to affirm here tonight, world sovereignty. As
human beings, we are all world sovereigns, the social and physical
popular expression being world citizens, and no nation or power is
able to deny that sovereignty or to deprive us of one iota of it.
This alone is democracy, for it includes all.
I have gone through five years of intense personal and public
experience since my renunciation in Paris, and my affirmation of
world sovereignty here tonight has been reached after most careful
and serious consideration. It is not a gesture of childish impulse or
maudlin sentiment: it is not abstract idealism
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or fanatical necessity. It is a simple and obvious fact recognized now
by peoples and governments alike. Further world sovereignty linked
with world citizenship is at last that undefined concept which relates
spiritual, social and physical fact together to make a totality of man.
I said that it is grounded on sound spiritual, social, and physical fact.
What are these facts or Prime Laws which are recognized universally
by peoples and institutions alike? Well, I have already stated them
here in many ways, but in brief they may be expressed as follows:
1. There is but One Deity or Ideal, Goal, Vision, Absolute, Origin,
Source, Mind, Spirit, Reality, Understanding, Wisdom, Truth, and so
on, unitively conceived and intuitively, that is, by conscience,
perceived, of which I am a living and integral part, as is all mankind;
and
2. There is but one world, which is ideologically or intellectually
understood, as my and mankind's natural home despite social
groupings such as tribal, communal, regional, geographical, cultural,
historical, ancestral, lingual, or professional and which constitutes my
total social environment or community; and
3. There is but one physical human family, which is instinctively
felt by common fundamental needs and wants, despite color, race,
sex, birth, property, economic or other physical status, and thus one
common citizenship.
Further, I am convinced that the full recognition of these three
fundamental or Prime Laws constitute a spiritual, social, and physical
trinity, in that the first represents personal or individual freedom,
the second, social or communal justice or fairness, and the third,
physical security and well-being, upon which the rational
organization of human society must be based for the increased
happiness of all.
It is on these three laws that you and I and the rest of our fellow
men and women can move together out of the foolish, wasteful,
chaotic, poverty-stricken circumstances we find ourselves in today
into the prosperity and happiness of a new world of complete and
joyous humanity.
I have said tonight that we must help ourselves to peace, security
and well-being. I have said that our leaders were stuck and needed
our help. I have affirmed world sovereignty and world citizenship as
a spiritual, social, and physical fact; I have given the trinity of Prime
Laws in confirmation of this fact. I have shown that people
everywhere are ready for peace and prosperity, that the world is in
dire need of these two. Then I have shown that only an international
authority, a world brain, a supranational government can coordinate
the immense diversity which is humanity, and make it live and
breathe as it must if we, its coordinate parts, are to live and evolve.
Further I have shown that the nations themselves, through the
United Nations, have given We the People, the mandate to create this
world government through the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights.
Here in this Town Hall in Ellsworth, Maine, in the sovereign United
States
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of America, I, a world citizen, exist in a world anarchy. I am no
longer able to tolerate such a condition. By the authority vested in
me as a world sovereign, it is my duty and my responsibility to
myself and to my humanity to hereby proclaim for myself a world
government with full legal powers and prerogatives based on the 3
Prime Laws of One God, One World, and one Mankind. This
government for the moment exists only in my person, but since all
men are world citizens with full world sovereignty based on a full
recognition of the 3 Prime Laws if they but affirm them, the
proclamation of world government is everyman's right, privilege, and
responsibility.
Presumptuous undertaking? Not at all, for nothing less will serve us,
and we must risk being called presumptuous by narrow minds and
closed hearts. I will answer that all new-borns are presumptuous in
their demands for sustenance and attention and I am no exception.
The world is certainly filled with wiser and better men, and I am the
first to admit personal failings. But that confession doesn't alter my
need. A world government is here born and if there are wiser and
better men, let them come forward challenged by its obvious failings
and helplessness. Let humanity have their services by all means.
Let the spiritual leaders and Gurus, the World Teachers come from
their ashrams, their meditative retreats and monastic centers in this
grave hour of our common need, and give us their moral counsel and
guidance. Let them breathe into this newly born government, given
life by one insignificant man-in-the-street, the spiritual substance it
must have if it is to prosper and serve men wisely.
It must have material sustenance as well if it is to grow in health,
substantial physical nourishment. In fact, ideally, it must have all
the resources of our common Mother Earth if it is to benefit all the
citizens thereon; and a world government by definition excludes no
one from its benefits. Materially speaking, our planet and our
human community is like a giant factory supplying all the material
needs to all who live at once on it and in it. And the sooner we short
circuit the road that is travelled by millions daily to satisfy the
world's material needs, the sooner we will all have more leisure and
means for recreation, whether social, intellectual, artistic, or physical.
Obviously the less effort we give to the means of life, the more time
and energy we have to enjoy the ends of life, according to our
individual interpretation. So our scientists and technicians carry the
banner of progress for the human race, as they lighten the means
and increase our opportunity to enjoy the ends.
Thus to solve the problem of managing our common factory for the
mutual benefit of all, the most able scientists, technicians, managers,
and administrators must come forward to give us their services.
Without this scientific management on the physical level of human
activity, gross and criminal waste, inefficiency, giant unrests between
workers leading to class struggles, bitter divisions between
management and labour, and finally, when the national politicians
can no longer govern the two opposed factions, the
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explosion of international war in the anarchic areas, leading to all the
plagues of the uncoordinated or idiot man referred to earlier. In
short, no sane business man would or could run his organization for a
minute the way our world factory is run without going bankrupt.
Already many cooperative communities and industries exist, as well
as large corporations in which complete coordination or cooperation
plus scientific management is the guiding principle. The higher the
degree of coordination by scientific management, the more successful
the business. These understand fully the tremendous benefits which
accrue to each member of a corporate or cooperative body. Full
material protection within the corporate body is guaranteed. The
largest corporate body of course, though still utterly uncoordinated,
is the human species itself, and like the human body, only thrives in
health and happiness when its various component parts are
coordinated and working in harmony with its brain and spirit.
Therefore the third Prime Law of One physical human family must
equate integrally with the first and second unitive laws. One for all
and all for one must be the prime basis for a World Citizen's
economy. This economy must evolve without disturbing one present
law, but in fact utilizing certain economic laws now existent in every
country for its prerogatives. Thus a World Citizen's Corporation must
come into being which has as its purpose the complete integration
and coordination of all the physical resources, means of production,
and labor of the entire planet, for the direct benefit of all the
consumers thereon, which excludes no one. Such a one world
consumer's cooperative, linked to no politics or private interests
because of its very inclusive nature, would allow each and every
working world citizen to benefit directly from his or her labor and
the labor of his or her neighbor throughout the total world
community. But further, it would at last give complete material
security to those who were unable to work due either to age or
physical disability. It would eventually link up all existent
cooperative and corporate endeavors, all specialized
nongovernmental world agencies now paralyzed due to national and
competitive tensions, to one scientifically but democratically-elected
World Parliament or Corporate Congress whose sole duty would be to
run our world factory efficiently and harmoniously for the benefit of
all the producers and consumers therein.
The World Government here proclaimed and open to all, with
undertake to initiate such a World Citizen's Corporation as its proper
corollary on the physical or economic level of human activity.
For moral and physical support of this endeavor, it calls upon the
mothers of the world, who are so intimately connected with the
physical continuance and well-being of the human race. If men be in
fact World Citizens, so every mother is a World Mother since her
child is born first into the Family of Man itself. And so, they are the
great heart of humanity, the well of infinite compassion, love and
pity that nurtures us from our very birth. They are the breast of
plenty,
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and without their blessing and heartfelt support, we will remain in
the realm of idle words and vain idealism.
Then we call to the common citizenry from which we have come, to
our brothers in the world community. We call them in all corners of
the globe, in every marketplace, in every secluded retreat, and from
all walks of life. We call to the reason and conscience which we
know to be a part of every man. In the name of Humanity of which
he is an integral and valuable unit, we ask him to identify himself,
not only as a citizen of his own hearth, his local community, his
region, and his nation, but also as a citizen of the entire world as his
natural and fundamental right as well as duty. Until we do this and
begin to work together, we will continue to deserve the slaveries,
both spiritual and economic we today endure. In short, we dare to
proclaim mankind's total existence as the highest allegiance and the
most noble and elevating duty of its separate component parts or
individuals.
And in Humanity's name, in which any reasonable man may speak
without fear, I, a World Sovereign, hereby claim the territory of the
entire earth as the proper home and the rightful possession of all
mankind. As an actual symbol of that ownership, and for the now
existent World government, I claim here in the soil of my birth, the
dot of land on which I now stand, as World Territory. Let it be
henceforth known as World Citizen's Point, and marked only as 68
Degrees 25' 30" Longitude, 44 Degrees 32' 30" Latitude.
Let all World Citizens accept this point as a territorial symbol of their
highest allegiance, whereas this World Citizen claims it as the only
legal territory within the continental limits of the United States of
America whereon he can reside.
As I stand before you here, no national law covers my very
existence. Since that day when I was brought back into France from
the United Nations, I have lived in five fully sovereign nations, yet
not one of those nations was able to represent me legally. But
further, merely to handle me physically, they were all obliged to
violate their own national laws. The most recent violation occurred
when the U.S. Immigration authorities admitted me to this country
last July 27th, frankly confessing to me at the time that no law
covered my entry since I was not a U.S. citizen, not an immigrant, not
a returning resident alien, and not a visitor, which four categories are
the only lawful means of entering and residing in the United States.
According to the laws of this land, therefore, I am non-existent, a
political and legal non-entity. Yet here I stand, in the City Hall of
Ellsworth, a respectable community, in a conservative stronghold of
the United States of America, the strongest power in the entire
world, and though my very existence here calls into fundamental
question that sovereign government, I remain untouched and
unharmed. Just as the Immigration authorities were unable to
refuse me though legally they were obliged to, so the law officer
standing in the rear of this hall though legally obliged to arrest me
because technically I am an illegal person, is unable
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to do so because my authority as a sovereign entity unto myself is
manifestly greater than his as a representative of the sovereign
nation. This does not mean that I must not obey reasonable laws of
conduct, and that if I disobey them, I will not be arrested by this
same officer. It means only that the State as such is the servant of
the sovereign individual, which is the basic principle of democracy,
and when the individual, according to his reason and conscience,
secedes from the State because he considers it no longer able to
protect him and yet give him the freedom he requires, the State
must follow him as his very shadow, because eventually his fellow
human beings and neighbors, also individually sovereign and
democratic, as well as the servants of the State itself, will recognize
him as the fundamental integer upon which a greater and more
inclusive State must be built if the whole community is to thrive.
Thus, as the territorial cornerstone of that Greater State, this dot I
claim as the only piece of legal land on which I am now able to
reside.
A point has no dimensions however, and therefore no physical
existence, so neither can I actually live here, nor can the United
States government claim it as national territory. Further, it having
no physical existence, my claim needs no confirmation on the part of
the national authorities as such, but only recognition from citizens
throughout the world.
As a world sovereign, existing legally only in a worldly sense, I am
able to give this point a legal existence based on the three Prime
Laws of Mankind. So be it. Now every national citizen throughout
the world is able to make a valid extension of his loyalty to the world
community through this legal world territory without at the same
time renouncing any humanitarian local or national responsibilities
which are a part of the Whole. World citizenship is not incompatible
with lower levels of citizenship so long as the duties and
responsibilities of those citizenships reflect that of the greater.
At this moment, this is the only neutral but inclusive government in
existence. It has no foreign policy, no political parties, indeed no
politics even, no army, navy or air force, though civil armies, navies
and air forces can perform many humanitarian duties once the threat
of war is removed, no axes to grind, no special interests to protect,
and no private profits to make. Its door is open to all and will be
closed to none. With the firm guidance of a representative council of
the World's Teachers and the World's Mothers, this government will
be able to command the services of the most capable and farsighted
men in order that humanity might be best served, and that positions
of public responsibility not be usurped by lesser men. Methods of
just selection can easily be incorporated into a World Constitution or
Charter whereby humanity's real leaders may rise to the top without
fear and without hindrance. Thus would evolve a World Parliament
or Corporate Congress gradually to replace in the public mind the
absolute nationalistic sovereignties of today. Through a World
Citizen's Corporation, problems of food, shelter, clothing, health,
education, labor, production, distribution, management
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and the like will be dealt with as a whole, scientifically and
cooperatively. A unified world currency will evolve in due course
based no doubt on a labor value rather than the unrealistic gathering
and stockpiling of inert metal by separate nation-states.
The completing of mankind, so long talked about by philosophers and
spiritual leaders, so long dreamed of by the persecuted down the
ages, is at hand. It is started here tonight. A world government
exists. . .if only in one common man and having but one dot of
territory. No longer need we collectively hesitate. No longer need
we argue about how long it will take, or whether the neighbor will
come in. This neighbor is in, and it but remains for everyone to
recognize and apply his own inness, or oneness.
The remaining task therefore is but a cleaning up one, a simple
duplication. The main job is over, that of completing the microcosm.
Each microcosm completed brings the macrocosm that much nearer
completion. Borrow if you wish this global vision and determination.
But do not be indifferent to your own survival and happiness.
Examine these ideas and words with the searing blade of your own
conscience and reason. They will stand even then. And do not
hesitate for lack of experience. This work is unprecedented in these
modern terms. Thus we are all youths in this task. But experience
can only be gained by living our goal from the outset, by being
members of the world community. And if we stumble, falter, even
fall, there are others to carry on, for the reality of Man's Unity is a
truth that cannot die.
I am a world sovereign. . .a forefather of the Human Race. Its
government is here proclaimed.
Brothers and sisters, fellow World Citizens, join me in this glorious
destiny.