Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1919 — WOE TO THE VICTORS [ARTICLE]

WOE TO THE VICTORS

If defeat of the treaty of peace by Republicans senators was a victory for their party, leaders of the g. o. p- are assuredly not demeaning themselves as victors. They are growing cautious, timid, apologetic. Chairman Hays of the Republican national committee has ordered that soundings of public sentiment be taken in every bailiwick of his partisan congressmen to determine the extent of the reaction following the treaty’s rejection. He is showing fear that the people’s verdict may hold him and the senatorial reactionaries responsibile for prolonging industrial unrest, the high cost of living, burdensome taxation, the danger of international complications and all the other concomitant evils of war. There are evidences, then, that the senators who strangled the treaty and prevented a formal conclusion of peace have least of all found favor with the politicians of their* own iparty. It is not too much to believe that, when the signs of popular disapproval begin to multiply, these senators may be blamed by the very leaders —including Will H. Hays—who Inspired and encouraged them to make ratification of. the treaty a game of politics instead

of a momentous duty in behalf ot their country and the entire world. It is already manifest that Senator Lodge’s proposal to make the treaty an issue in the presidential campaign has caused trepidation among the "practlcals” of the g. o. p. They do not welcome the prospect of so plain and specific a question being referred to the people. They prefer to stake their hopes on generalities and platitudes. They know in advance that the voters could easily decide*which of the two parties spoke the will and sought the welfare of the country during the fight to adopt the treaty and end the war.