Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1919 — “SPEAKS TO REPUBLICANS [ARTICLE]

“SPEAKS TO REPUBLICANS

* The Indianapolis News (Rep.) speaks to the Republican obstructionists of the peace treaty and league covenant in the U. S. senate in the following vigorous editorial : It is now suggested that the concurrent resolution of Senatot Lodge ■declaring the war at an end ’’be •changed into a joint resolution, thus making the approval of the president necessary. - The idea is that if he vetoes it, as he certainly would, he will be responsible for the postponement of peace- Here is another expedient by which it is hoped to free the senate from th duty of acting on the treaty. It will fail, as the others have failed. Those Republican senators who favor the treaty should very promptly make up their minds as to the policy to be pursued. The country looks to them to combine with Democrats to bring about ratification on reasonable terms. - It is now clear, as was pointed cut in a recent News dispatch, that Senator Lodge has been against the treaty from the beginning. Every step that he has taken, and every policy that he has. proposed, make this plain. He does not want a league of nations at all. He is the leader, not of Republicans favoring the treaty, but of the “battalion of death.” As chairman of the for-

eign relations committee has ■brought in many Amendments, not one of which could have Deen adopted without making it necessary to send the treaty back to the peace conference. All these were voted down. Then he brought forward his ratification resolution with more than a dozen reservations, and which provided that the treaty should not bind the United States till these reservations were accepted by three of the four great powers—ltaly, Great Britain, France and Japan. This was nothing more than a proposal to amend the treaty by Indirection. Then he came forward with the suggestion that the treaty be laid aside —or defeated —and peace declared by concurrent or joint resolution. So Lodge’s record Is clear. Therefore, Republicans who want the treaty ratified are facing a very serious duty. If they are in earnest they will make every effort to come to agreement with Democrats who favor ratification with reservations and put through a ratification resolution. In no other way can this matter be disposed of. The American people do not want a peace that will be no peace, and the only effect of which will be’ to separate us from our friends and associates and to leave scores of problems unsolved. This, as has often Deen said, is no party question. That man is no patriot whose only thought of any action that may be taken is as to Its effect in the approaching presidential campaign. The Republicans in the senate who take the broad and patriotic view, and who, along with Messrs. Taft, Hughes and Root, desire a league of nations, have a great chance to serve their country and the world. They can not do this by following the Lodge leadership.