The proposal did not meet the approval of the Conference. M. Marcel Sembat, one of the French delegates, opposed it because it presented a political question not within the purview of the Conference. Admiral Fournier warned against the danger of importing exceptions of various kinds into a constitutive document. Mr. S. G. Cheng, a representative of the Chinese Association Wankuo Tungmen Hui, opposed it because it would open the way for Japan to intervene in Chinese affairs. The writer replied that the clause could not possibly be interpreted to permit a hegemony to be created in behalf of any nation in any continent, because the Executive Council was obliged to refer the issues to all the member nations in the continent affected; that, indeed, the advantage was on the side of the smaller or weaker nations because it placed them upon an 'equality with the stronger. There was a farther opposition from British quarters, especially from the Chairman of the Conference, Lord Shaw, and, finally, upon the suggestion of M. Léon Bourgeois, Mr. Straus withdrew the proposal, stating that he would urge it upon the American Mission in Paris for farther action. Article X, whatever its final form may be, must be interpreted in the light of that good faith which is implied as the background of all treaties. If it is to be assumed that the Covenant will furnish a basis to the members of the League "to extend their system" in other continents or places in menace of the peace and safety of other members, notwithstanding that the Covenant expressly forbids all territorial aggression, then no mere words can be devised to prevent it, and the League will be indeed a building of bricks without mortar. Nullum imperium tutum nisi benevolentia munitum. It is true that a good lawyer must anticipate the worst. Soit. We have the whole machinery of the League to protect us-inquiry, conciliation, arbitration, and the Court of International Justice (Articles XII to XV, inclusive). In addition, we are protected by the requirement of unanimity in the Body of Delegates. Truly, in respect to the Monroe Doctrine, the strength of the League lies in its weakness. It neither permits nor coerces. It provides new machinery, it conserves the old, and it can easily be developed into a tower of strength whereby nations of good repute may combat the evil-doer. In a short car-platform speech made at Providence during the run from Boston to Washington, President Wilson said: The thing that has pleased me most in my con tact with the peoples of Europe is that they trust the people of America, and all I have to say is that if America disappoints them the heart of the world will be broken. Senate BY L. A. MEAD The following article, which first appeared as a letter to the Springfield, Massachusetts, Republican, reminds us of the jingo danger that is always with us: Ninety-six senators hold the future of humanity for the next century within their hands. If one more than one-third that number were to not ratify the peace treaty and covenant of the league, this country will remain without the league. If it remains outside, the league will fail, the hopes of mankind be blasted and civilization receive an injury as vital as the world war itself. The Senate has been called the "graveyard of treaties." In a recent address Rev. Edward Cummings has declared that but for the action of the Senate in defeating the Taft treaties in 1911 he believed there would have been no world war. This is a serious indictment and deserves consideration; but we must go back to the situation which developed before the defeat of the OlneyPauncefote treaty in 1897 which must be considered with the Taft treaties in order to make the indictment still more cogent. In 1896, we had just avoided rupture with Great Britain over the Venezuelan boundary line which not one citizen in a million knew anything about until President Cleveland's message startled us into consciousness that it was still possible to conceive of war between Great Britain and ourselves. The boundary was arbitrated and the result justified Great Britain's contention as to her claims. But there was sore feeling which needed wise statemanship to allay. At that time the republican party still advocated bimetalism and Senator Lodge, on April 6, 1896, said in the Sen ate: "The gold monometalic policy of Great Britain, now in force among all great civilized nations, is, I believe, the great enemy of good business throughout the world at this moment. Therefore, it seems to me if there is any way in which we can strike England's trade or her moneyed interests, it is our clear policy to do so in the interests of silver." This quotation is not given as bearing on the financial problem, about which of course any one is at liberty to change his mind without blame for inconsistency, but as showing the theory of national policy and the animus of Senator Lodge at that time toward Great Britain. Said Senator Joseph R. Hawley at a banquet of the alumni of Hamilton college: "In every emergency with which the United States has been confronted, the British government has been our enemy. She is pushing us on every side now. She is trying to straddle the Nicaraguan canal and to grab the Alaskan gold fields. Whenever she gets hold of a bit of land, from that time her boundary line is afloat That is the kind of nation that we are fighting. Look at their fancy drill, the other day, when in five days a powerful squadron was gathered at the stated point; is there no object lesson for America in that? I tell you that we must be ready to fight. Either we will float a dead whale on the ocean or we must say to Great Britain, 'Here is where you stop.'' Senator John B. Wilson of Washington Isaid in the United States Senate: "I think we should annex in some way or other, all countries on this hemisphere. War is a good thing." Said Senator Cullom in the Senate, speaking of England: "This arch land-grabber has planted her flag on all the scattering islands, and on nearly every spot on earth where it could monopolize or control the strategic advantages of location for its own interests. .. We cannot look with indifference upon this policy of conscienceless encroachment. If left to herself, she will finally dominate Venezuela, and a free republic will be crushed by an overpowering monarchy." The blind chaplain of the Senate on the morrow of the Venezuelan message prayed, "Grant, Lord, that we may be quick to resent insults." We had as a nation stood for the principle of arbitration and were ready to fight for it had not a much surprised Great Britain realized our hot spirit and granted our desire. Then two wise diplomats-Mr. Olney and Lord Pauncefote-set themselves to the task of drawing up a five-year arbitration treaty which was acclaimed "a triumph of American diplomacy." It pledged our respective countries to arbitrate all differences not adjusted by diplomatic negotiation and was such a treaty as Mr. Roosevelt within this last year advocated with Great Britain. The British people and the British government wanted this treaty. The American people and the majority of their government wanted this treaty. But their will was nullified by a vote of 26 senators against it. Ten of these 26 senators, from the states of Idaho, Montana, Nevada and North and South Dakota, representing a combined population less than that of Chicago or Brooklyn, thus defeated the will of two great nations. The two senators from Nevada represented but 60,000 people-less than the population of Fall River. To the glory of New England, let it be remembered that not one of her 12 senators, including Senator Lodge, voted "no." The prime consideration with these western senators was that they stood for silver and Great Britain had a gold standard. The question of arbitration which had just before been lauded throughout the land was apparently a side issue in their minds. The greatest opportunity that had come for a century to help realize the dream of William Penn and Immanuel Kant was thus ruthlessly destroyed. No one foresaw that two years later a Hague conference would assemble and that the whole tone and power of it would be profoundly affected if the two great Englishspeaking nations had already led the world to an arbitration pact. Could Andrew D. White have pointed proudly to this achievement as he rallied the suspicious and reluctant forces from 26 nations eyeing each other in the queen's little Palace in the Wood, he would have been able, with Lord Pauncefote, who sat with him, to have given an object lesson to the world which Kaiser William II. would have noted. Great results, despite this loss, came from the first Hague conference. Within six years it had prevented one war, settled another and established a tribunal of arbitration to which the greatest nations of the earth had carried their disputes. But if the treaty of 1897 together with the Taft treaties of a few years later, had both passed the fatal two-thirds line of the Senate, the spirit which animated the first and second Hague conferences would have been courageous and not timid, and far stronger buttresses would have been built to uphold the principles of law. Had not a vicious attitude toward England been manifested by men in power who confounded chauvinism with patriotism, Germany would have known that injustice to England would be resented here. When the Taft treaties were defeated by one or two votes the wills, not only of the British government and people and of the American government and people, but also that of the French government and people were frustrated. Had America, France and Great Britain been standing shoulder to shoulder in this matter before 1914, who doubts that Sir Edward Grey could in July, 1914, have secured the delay for inquiry or arbitration which would have prevented aggression by Germany at that time? Had this crisis then passed, the approaching third Hague conference, due in 1915, might have consolidated the peaceful interests of the world and shown the Kaiser that with the growing spirit of socialism within his borders and of revolution in Russia, his dream of world empire could never be realized. As one reads the words of hot indignation uttered by bitterly disappointed Americans of 1897, one gains a faint conception of the vials of wrath that will be poured upon any group of senators that dare betray the American people again and in this greatest crisis of world history. Scathing words uttered then by an American scholar and patriot should warn our people to-day how great the danger is that partisan spirit and petty politics may thwart the public will and a handful of wilful men imperil the future of the world: "The 26 senators trembled lest a ratification of the arbitration treaty at this time should appear to the nations of the world like an 'alliance' with England, and thus the great republic, whose fair fame is so dear to them, seem privy to iniquity: and from that they shrank in horror. They felt themselves the proxies and attorneys of oppressed, struggling humanity, against 'our hereditary foes and freedom's,' the English people, the great representatives and agents of despotism and darkness in the world from Wyclif's time and Milton's to Bright and Gladstone's; and that solemn charge and consciousness nerved them to heroism. They wished to give the English people the medicine they needed, in the name of the Lord, teaching them the great lesson of cosmopolitan obligation, even at the high price of our own repudiation of it. . . . A great measure, a great principle, not for to-day and tomorrow, but for history and the future, was submitted to the Senate, and the Senate was not equal to it; the controlling minority was false to the high traditions and high call of the American people, and by its act the republic has been garbed as a traitor to the cause of progress and of human hope." "An overwhelming majority of the American people," said President Wilson, "is in favor of the League of Nations." He made this statement in an address at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City on March 4, the day before sailing back for France. "How does he know?" replied his critics. "How is it humanly possible for anybody to know?" One such way is to ask newspaper editors all over the country. Accordingly, the Literary Digest at once sent to the editor of every daily newspaper in the United States a letter asking his attitude toward joining "the proposed League of Nations." He was also asked to tell, if possible, the attitude of his community toward it. The response breaks all records; 1,877 editors have replied. Of these the ..718 ..181 .478 ... 1377 21,005,792 DEMOCRATIC The editors came to their decisions in many ways-through straw votes, interviews, study of state papers on the exchange table, reference to action of State legislatures, conclusions drawn from speeches at mass meetings and from elections. Following is a table showing the circulations of the replying newspapers, thereby suggesting the number of people concerned in these editorial decisions: REPLYING NEWSPAPERS For Against Conditional For Against Conditional For Against Conditional .4,827,052 121,912 508,884 4,957,848 INDEPENDENT .8,648,141 .*2,955,706 .2,447,660 9,051,507 Conditional So, were the whole decision left to the Republicans, the League (or at any rate, a League) would win. Out of 527 Republican votes cast 114 are "Yes," 806 "Yes, conditionally," only 107 are "Noes." Were the whole result left to the Independents we should find much the same result: "Yes," 205; "Conditionally,” 51; “No,” 8. Among Democrats there is an overwhelming majority, not only for a League, but for the League: "Yes," 879; "Conditionally," 18; "No," 47. Were the whole issue left to any one of the officially recognized sections of America-New England, Middle Atlantic, East North Central, West North Central, South Atlantic, East South Central, West South Central, Mountain and Pacific-the "Yes" and "Yes, conditionally" would greatly outnumber the "Noes." Were the whole issue left to any one of the States, the "Noes" would lose. 269 LLOYD GEORGE SAYS THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS HASTENS PEACE Before the House of Commons on April 16, Premier Lloyd George said: "I am fully aware that there is a good deal of impatience in the world for peace. "The task with which the peace delegates have been confronted is indeed a gigantic one. No conference that ever assembled in the history of the world has been confronted with problems of such variety, of such perplexity, of such magnitude, and of such gravity. "The Congress of Vienna was the nearest approach to it. It had to settle the affairs of Europe. It took eleven months. But the problems of the Congress of Vienna, great as they were, sink into insignificance compared with those that we have to settle at the Paris Conference. "It is not one continent that is engaged. Every continent is affected. With very few exceptions, every country in Europe has been in this war. Every country in Asia is affected by the war except Thibet and Afghanistan. There is not a square mile of Africa which has not been engaged in the war in one way or another. Almost the whole of the nations of America are in the war. In the far Southern Seas, islands have been captured and hundreds of thousands of men have gone to fight in this great struggle. There has never been in the whole history of the globe anything to compare with this. "Ten new States have sprung into existence. Some of them are independent, some of them seem dependent, some of them may be protectorates; and, at any rate, although we may not define their boundaries, we must give indications of them. Boun daries of fourteen countries have to be recast. That will give some idea of the difficulties of a purely territorial character that have engaged our attention. "But there are problems equally great, equally important, not of a territorial character, but all affecting the peace of the world, all affecting the well-being of men, all affecting the destiny of the human race, and every one of them of a character where, if you make a blunder, humanity may have to pay: armament, economic questions of commerce and trade, questions of international waterways and railways, the question of indemnities-not an easy one, and not one that you can settle by telegrams. International arrangements for labor, practically never attempted before- a great world scheme-have been adopted. "And there is that great organization, the great experiment-an experiment, but one upon which the hope of the world for peace will hang-the Society of Nations. "All of them and each of them separately would occupy months, and a blunder might precipitate universal war. It may be near or it may be distant, and all the nations, almost every nation on earth, is engaged in consideration of these problems. "We were justified in taking some time. In fact, I don't mind saying that it would have been imperative in some respects that we should take more time but for one fact, and that is, that we are setting up a machinery that is capable of readjusting and correcting possible mistakes-and that is why the League of Nations, instead of wasting time, has saved time." "Our proposed commitments with the other nations of the world may be a radical departure from our traditional policies, they may be considered as more ideal than practical in their terms, they may be feared as too long a flight into idealism for human nature as it is at present constitutedthese are still controversial subjects upon which I shall not venture,-but the general plan cannot, it seems to me, be considered as in opposition to Washington's views nor of his policies, surrounded as he was with circumstances which made such policies in his time necessary. Washington knew what war was, although his experience was inconsiderable as compared with recent conditions, but he knew what warfare meant to a country and to its people, and his I constant effort was to guard against it. Would he not surely want the power and influence of the America of to-day to be thrown into the effort to avert war by any honorable and understandable means? believe so, and if idealism will prevent warfare and give the world a chance to recover from what we may hope may be the last great struggle, he would have had us try it. But, Washington would also have us keep a firm hold upon the practical problems connected with our own advancement and prosperity and while entering upon the new plan in absolute good faith, he prepared for any eventuality."-William C. Sproul, Governor of Pennsylvania, in an address at the University of Pennsylvania. |