Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 178, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 July 1920 — THE LEAGUE COVENANT. [ARTICLE]

THE LEAGUE COVENANT.

The following from the address of Senator Warren G. Harding at the occasion of the notification of his nomination as the standard bearer of the Republican party should be read, re-read, studied and poundered by every American. It will avail nothing to discuss in detail the league covenant, which was conceived for world supergovernment, negotiated in misunderstanding, and intolerantely urged and demanded by its administration sponsors, who resisted every effort to safe-guard America, and who finally rejected it when such safeguards were inserted. “If the supreme blunder has left European relationships inextricably interwoven in the league compact, our sympathy for Europe only magnifies our own good fortune in resisting involvement. It is better to be the free and disinterested agent of international justice and advancing civilization, with the covenant of conscience, than be shackled by a written compact which surrenders our freedom of action and gives to a military alliance the right to proclaim America’s duty to the world. "No *urrender of right* to a world council or it* military alliance, no assumed mandatory, however appealing, ever shall summon the son* of thi* republic to .war. Their supreme sacrifice shall only be asked for America and its call of honor.. There is a sanctity in that right we will not delegate. . “When the compact was being written, I do not know whether Europe asked or ambition insistently bestowed. It was so good to rejoice in the world’s confidence in our unselfishness that I can believe our evident disinterestedness inspired Europe’s wish for our association, quite as much as the selfish thought of enlisting American power and resources. Ours is an outstanding, infuential example to the world, whether we cloak it in spoken modesty or magnify it in exaltation. We want to help; we mean to help; but we hold to our own interpretation of the American conscience as the very soul of our nationality.

The Unselfish Way. ( “Disposed as we are, the way is । very simple. Let the failure at- 1 tending assumption, obstinacy, impracticability and delay be recognized, and let us find the big, practical, unselfish way to do our part, neither covetous because of am-, bition nor hesitant through fear, ’ but ready to serve ourselves, humanity and God. “With a senate advising, as the Constitution contemplates, I would hopefully approach the nations of Europe and of the earth, propos- ] ing that understanding which makes us a willing participant in the consecration of nations to a new relationship, to commit the moral forces of the world, America included, to peace and international justice, still leaving America free, independent and self-reliant, but offering friendship to all the world. “If men call for more specific details, I remind them that moral committals are broad and all inclusive, and we are contemplating peoples in the concord of humanity’s advancement. From our own viewpoint the program is specifically American and we mean to be American first, to all the world. “Appraising preserved nationality as the first essential to the continued progress of the republic, there is linked with it the supreme necessity of the restoration—let us say the re-revealment— of the Gonstitution and our reconstruction as as industrial nation. Here is the transcending, task. It concerns our common weal at home ana wall decide our future eminence in the W °“More than these, this republic, I under constitutional liberties, has , given to mankind the most for- ■ tunate conditions for human activity and attainment the world has ever noted, and wo are today the

world’s reserve force groat tunity and its righteous rewards.