Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 August 1919 — LEAGUE FULFILS AMERICAN IDEAL [ARTICLE]

LEAGUE FULFILS AMERICAN IDEAL

Herbert Hoover Says Democracies Replaced Autocracies at Our Bidding. FOOD ADMINISTRATION CHIEF. Urges Ratification on Ground That Peace Treaty Will Collapse Without League of Nations. Herbert Hoover Is so deeply concerned over the opposition to the League of Nations In the United States that he has let himself be interviewed at length on the League situation. In a talk with the New York Times correspondent In Paris, the Food Administration Chief asserts that having caused the League Idea to prevail America cannot abandon It. We cannot withdraw, he says, and leave Europe to chaos. “To abandon the League Covenant now means that the treaty Itself will collapse.” Mr. Hoover’s wide acquaintance with conditions both here and abroad, his reputation as an administrator, a man of great affairs who deals with facts, not theories, make his statement one of the most Important contributions to the recent League discussions. “There are one or two points In connection with the present treaty,” said Mr. Hoover, “that need careful consideration, by the American public. We need to digest the fact that we have for a century and a half been advocating democracy not only as a remedy for the Internal ills of all society, but also as the only real safeguard against war. We have believed and proclaimed, in season and out, that a world In which there was a free expression and enforcement of the will of the majority was the real basis of government, was essential for the advancement of civilization, and that we have proved its enormous human benefits In our country. American Ideas Have Prevailed. “We went into the war to destroy autocracy as a menace to our own and all other democracies. If we had not come into the war every Inch of European soil today would be under autocratic government. We have Imposed our will on tlie world. Out of this victory has come the destruction of the four great autocracies in Germany, Russia, Turkey and Austria and the little autocracy in Greece. New democracies have sprung into being In Poland, Finland, Letvla, Lithuania, Esthonia, Czechoslovakia, Greater Serbia, Greece, Siberia, and even Germany and Austria have established democratic governments. Beyond these a host of small republics, such as Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and others, have sprung up, and again as a result of this great world movement the constitutions of Spain, Rumania, and even England, have made a final ascent to complete franchise and democracy, although they still maintain a symbol of royalty. “We have been the living spring for tills last century and half frdm which these Ideas have sprung, and we have triumphed. The world today, except for a comparatively few reactionary and communistic autocracies, Is democratic, and we did It. “A man who takes a wife and blesses the world with several infants cannot go away and leave them on the claim that there was no legal marriage. “These Infant democracies all have political, social and economic problems involving their neighbors that are fraught with the most intense friction. There axe no natural boundaries in Europe. Races are not compact ; they blend at every border. They need railway communication and sea outlets through their neighbors’ territory. “Many of these states must for the next few years struggle alprost for bare bones to maintain their very existence. Every one of them is going to do its best; to protect its own Interests, even to the prejudice of iti neighbors. Governments Lack Experience. "We in America should realize that

democracy, as a stable form of government as we know it, is possible only with highly educated populations ami a large force of men who are capabk 4t government Few of the men wh< compose these governments have had any actual experience at governing and their populations are woefully illiterate. “They will require a generation oi actual national life in peace to develop free education and skill in government • “Unless these countries have a guid ing hand and referee in their quarrels, a cou¥t of appeals for their wrongs, this Europe will go back to chaos. If there is such an institution, representing the public opinion of the world, and able to exert Its authority, they will grow Into stability. We cannot turn back now. “There is another point which also needs emphasis. World treaties hitherto have always been based on the theory of a balance of power. Stronger races have been set up to dominate the weaker, partly with a view to maintaining stability and to a greater degree with a view to maintaining occupations and positions for the reactionaries of the world. “The balance of power is born of armies and navies, aristocracies, autocracies, and reactionaries generally, who can find employment and domination in these Institutions, and treaties founded on this basis have established stability after each great war for a shorter or longer time, but never more than a generation. “America came forward with a new Idea, and we Insisted upon its injection into this peace conference. We claimed that it was possible to set up such a piece of machinery with such authority that the balance oi power could be abandoned as a relic of the middle ages. We compelled an entire construction of this treaty and every word and line in it to bend to this idea. “Outside of the League of Nations the treaty Itself has many deficiencies. It represents compromises between many men and between many selfish interests, and these very compromises and deficiencies are multiplied by the many new nations that have entered upon its signature, and the very safety of the treaty itself lies in a court of appeal for the remedy of wrongs in tlte treaty. Benefits of the League. “One thing is certain. There is no body of human beings so wise that a treaty could be made that would not develop Injustice and prove to have been wrong in some particulars. As the covenant stands today there is a place at which redress can be found and through which the good-will of the world can be enforced. The very machinery by which the treaty is to be executed, and scores of points yet to be solved, which have been referred to the League of Nations as a method of securing more mature judgment in a less hehted atmosphere, justifies the creation of the League. *>To abandon the covenant now means that the treaty itself will collapse. “K would take the exposure of but a fesjßocuments at my hand to prove thaNjSftd been the most reluctant of to become involved in this situation in Europe. But having gone in with our eyes open and with a determination to free ourselves and the rest of the world from the dangers that surrounded us, we cannot now pull back from the job. It is no use to hold a great revival and then go away leaving a church for continued services half done. “We have succeeded in a most extraordinary degree, in imposing upon Europe the complete conviction that we are absolutely disinterested. The consequence is that there is scarcely a man, woman or child who can read in Europe that does not look to the United States as the ultimate source from which they must receive assurances and guardianship in the liberties which they have now secured after so jpany generations of struggle. “This is not a problem of protecting the big nations, for the few that remain can well look after themselves. What we have done is to set up a score of little democracies, and if the American people could visualize their handiwork they would Insist with the same determination that they did in 1917 that our government proceed.”