Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 November 1919 — TUE WAR’S AFTERMATH [ARTICLE]

TUE WAR’S AFTERMATH

All the world was Impressed by jthe high Ideals and humanitarian motives which actuated the United States in entering and prosecuting |he war. At the close of the great conflict there was a universal disposition. to make a peace which should adopt America’s unselfishness in all international relations. The various peoples stood willing and waiting for the United States to take the lead and through the league of nations to give force and effect to this new order of things. No sooner had the /league emerged from the Paris conference than it was attacked by men in the very country which was everywhere expected to vitalize and perpetuate it as a guarantee of concord and justice between the nations. As this opposition in the .United States senate continued to grow in influence and virulence, the peoples of Europe showed signs first of bitter disappointment and ithen of despair. The workers, who are at once the principal advocates of peace and the chief sufferers in war, began to doubt the establishment of the league. Their misgivings bred discontent; they sought lo obtain by strikes and demonstra- > -tions what they believed they had lost through the failure of the league. That spirit of unrest and resentment and antagonism is manifest in the strikes and general disquiet among wage-earners in the States. The gfeatest war in history seemed at its end to have accomplished the most promising and permanent peace of history- Men were convinced that they need make fewer sacrifices to insure international understanding and comity than were required •to conduct wars. But instead of an aftermath of love, there has been an aftermath of hate. Senator Lodge and”his associates In the fight against the |reaty„ against the league of nations and against peace disappointed and embittered the world. They may haive to bear a terrible responsibility. The temper of European peoples today imay easily bring a break-down of law. There may come a reign of anarchy. International war may have ceased only to be followed by International revolutions. The league of nations has been kept out of operation for six months. That is a lojig time during which to deprive the whole world of a means of making and keeping peace.