Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 June 1920 — IT’S AS CLEAR AS MUD [ARTICLE]

IT’S AS CLEAR AS MUD

In the league of nations plank of the Chicago platform, the convention declared that “the senators performed their duty - faithfully” when they defeated the peace treaty. “We,” so the plank runs, “approve their conduct and honor their courage.” Yet those same senators who voted for the treaty with the Lodge reservations have many times denounced president Wilson for having defeated the treaty. They professed to be laboring earnestly for it, and were greatly pained when they saw their efforts thwarted, as they said, by the president. Mr. Wilson should, we

feel, have had a vote of thanks from the convention, which was so free in its criticisms, for beating a covenant “that repudiated to a degree •wholly unnecessary and unjustifiable the time-honored policy in favor of peace declared by Washington and Jefferson and Monroe,” etc. The only purpose of Senator Lodge and his associates, so they have told us, was to “Americanize”-the treaty. This they supposed they had done by the Lodge reservations. Yet for these there is not one word of ap-

proval. It is not even suggested that these should be adopted and the treaty then ratified. On the contrary, this work, along with the treaty itself, is repudiated. For the demand is for a new treaty with “nations pledged to do and insist upon what is just and fair,” a treaty through which they "may exercise their influence and power for the prevention of war.” Meanwhile, of course, the state of war with Germany will continue. Nothing whatever is said about a treaty with that power for the ending of the war, and the defining of American rights. As to the new organization that is proposed, it does not seem to have occurred to the men responsible for this “Alice-in-Wonderland” plank, that there is already In existence an organization of which some 30 nations are members, or that these nations might be slow to throw this overboard at the suggestion of a country that has shown such extreme reluctance to assume any obligations of an international character.

The reconciliation effected at Chicago through surrender to Johnson and Borah leaves the people entirely at sea as to the meaning of the plank considered constructively. All that is clear is that it is a declaration against the covement, even with the Lodge reservations. Senators Borah and Johnson got what they wanted, as the statement of the former indicates: It is a marvelous thing. Here is a plan presented askipg that we ratify the league of nations with particular reservations; that is what is asked; that is what we have, opposed, that is what is beaten. There is no request, as I understand, for the ratification of the league of nations at all. Absolutely the justification of everything this little band of, senators has done at Washington..

The convention should have limited its praise to “the little band of senators,” and condemned those who voted for the reservations, and the league with them. In the classic referred to, "Alice in Wonderland,” is this: They told me you had been to her, And mentioned me to him; She gave me a good character, But said I could not swim. My notion was that you have been (Before she had this fit) An obstacle that came between Him and ourselves and it.

Don’t let him know she liked them best. For this must ever be A secret kept from all the rest. Between yourself and me. How clear it all is when interpreted in the light of this precedenL — Indianapolis News.