Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1920 — A RIGHTEOUS VETO [ARTICLE]

A RIGHTEOUS VETO

The President yesterday, in a message restrained and temperate in tone, vetoed the Knox ( resolution designed as a substitute for- a peace treaty. As that resolution was wrong, and would have involved us in mhny complications, and perhaps in some perils, the veto is of necessity right. We decline to consider the question from the point of view of the effect of the President’s action in the presidential campaign. That. is a matter of minor importance. The words of the President are much less heated than those of Senator Lodge, spoken in December, 1918, on the very eve of the peace conference: We can not make peace in the ordinary way. We can not, in the Erst place, make peace except in company with our allies. It would brand us with everlasting dishonor and bring ruin to us, also, if we undertook to make a separate peace. Mr. Wilson refuses to “become party to an action which would place ineffaceable stain upon the gallantry and honor of the United States.” He and the Lodge of 1918 are, therefore, in substantial agree-

ment. But it is pointed out in the message how much would be left undone if the resolution should be adopted. It “seeks to establish peace with the German empire without exacting from tfie German gov ernment any action by way of setting right the infinite wrongs which it did to the peoples when it attacked and whom we professed it our purpose to assist when we entered the war.” All the purposes which we avowed when we went into the war are abandoned. Here are some —only a few —of the things in which the senate would have us express no Interest:

Notwithstanding the fact that upon our entrance into the war we professed to be seeking to assist in the maintenance of common interests, nothing is said in this resolution about the freedom of navigation upon the seas, or the reduction of armaments, or the rectification of wrongs done to France, or ihe vindication of the rights of Belgium, or the release of the Christian populations of the Ottoman empire from the intolerable subjugation which they have had for so many generations to endure, or the establishment of an independent Polish state, or. the continued maintenance of any kind of understanding among the great powers of the world which would be. calculated to prevent in the future such outrages as Germany attempted and in part ccnsum,mated. We have now in effect declared that we do not care to take any. further risks or assume any further responsibilities with regard to the freedom of nations, or the sacredness of international obligation, or the safety of independent peoples. ' To those who are selfishly inclined, it should be said that we do not even safeguard our own interests. For. this resolution makes, as the President says, “a complete surrender of the rights Of the United States so far as the German government is concerned.” It is true that an attempt is made to force Germany to concede the rights written in the treaty of Versailles. But it is for Germany to say whether she will grant them. If she does not there will not be even such a poor peace as that sought' by this resolution. Of this peace Mr Wilson very truly says: Such a peace , with Germany—a peace in which of the essem tial interests which we had at heart when we entered the war is safeguarded —is, or ought to be, incon-

ceivable, is inconsistent with the dignity of the United States, with the rights and liberties of her citizens and with the very fundamental conditions of civilization. If Senator Lodge believed what he said in December, 1918, he should be glad to vote to sustain this veto. Senator Colt, also, if he has been correctly quoted, should rejoice at the opportunity that is now offered him. The country will hope that the President and the senate may before long come together in a sensible compromise that will make possibls the ratification of the Versailles treaty— Indianapolis News (Rep.)