Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 76, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 December 1919 — GENERAL AND STATE NEWS [ARTICLE]

GENERAL AND STATE NEWS

Telegraphic Reports From Many Parts of the Country. SHORT BITS OF THE UNUSUAL Happenings in the Nearby Cities aad Towns—Matters of Minor Mention Froth Many Localities. AMERICA CAN NOT QUIT NOW Dr. Rershy Deprecates Opposition . * to Peace Treaty.

Bloomington, Dec. 18. —Dr. Amos S. Hershy, professor of political science- and international law at Indiana ■university and a national authority on this subject, who was a mam her of the American delegation at the peace conference In France, deprecates the opposition to the league of nations and says that "America simply can not quit.” Dr. Hershey, who received a jeave of absence from Indiana that he might become one of the representatives of the United States in the parleys, gives his views in an article published in the university's Alumni Quarterly, p "We went into the war with certain professed purposes,” he says. "It was not merely to avenge ourselves upon Germany and Austria for incalculable and hitherto unheard of wrongs, or even to protect ourselves and western civilization against the German menace, but we made war upon war Itself, and aimed to make the world safe for freedom and democracy.

“Now, suppose we are to attempt to cut ourselves adrift, abandon our ideals and our promises, refuse to co-operate in the great task of reconstruction after the actual fighting is over, say again in effect to Europe: 'You attend to your own affairs, we’shall attend to* ours,’ whal other epithets should we deserve than those of ‘quitters,’ ‘slackers’ and ‘deserters’? Suppose, further,/thq.t in course of time we should discover (as we are bound to discover in the long run) that we can not quit, that the historical period of our national Isolation is over, that the age of internationalism or international has come, that we can not, if we would, disassociate ourselves from our brethren overseas, what a shame, what a disgrace, what a national humiliation that would be.”

Dr. Hershey admits that the treaties and the so-called league or covenant of nations are. “very defective,” but goes on to say that he believes the league is “based bn a sound and workable principle.” In answer tq the charges of a “Shantung outrage,” Dr. (Hershey frankly admits that “it Is an outrage.” “It constitutes,” he says, “the oae big hole in the doughnut, as a cartoon exhibits It. “Unquestionably the dice which Japan played in the peace conference were loaded. China and the United states were helpless. The alternative was a situation which no far-seeing statesman cared to face. We have it on the highest authority that Japan threatened to withdraw from the conference disgusted and disgruntled. In the background stood the shadow of her possible alliance with a revived and vengeful Germany and a Ger-man-made Russia.” Dr. Hershey says China’s only hope, “a slender hope,” is in the league of, nations. Despite his admissions that the treaties are defective, Dr. Hershey believes they should be “left as thy stand” for the present. Under the present 4condltions, he adds, “tinkering is a difficult and dangerous business.” "It reminds us of Nero fiddling while Rome was burning,” he asserts. "However, I see no objection to interpretive reservations or resolutions by the senate forming no part of the ratification Itself, or even to mild reservations which would not change the essential character of the treaties or necessitate a revision at Paris or elsewhere. I am sure that few, If any, of the participants In the work of the peace commission would care to resume that dreary task.”