OCR Text |
Show THE CITIZEN fll party on the nation despite the most powerful political ring of federal officeholders and employes that ever has existed. The Republicans can view the situation 'with confidence. To obtain a sweeping triumph next year but one thing is needed organization, intensive organization, and to attain it they must work from now until the day of the national election, zealously and tirelessly. SENATOR KING'S RESERVATION Democrats who were most clamorous in denouncing to the peace treaty are now proposing reservations. Amorfg them is our esteemed Senator King, who is considered worthy of a special dispatch in one of the Salt Lake papers because he has proposed a reservation to the Labor covenant of the peace treaty. We take pleasure in quoting the things that the senator said about the purpose of his reservation because we believe that our readers will remember that all of these things were said by another distinguished Utahn long before Senator King thought of them. Senator King is quoted as follows : This reservation will not be considered by the Senate until the committee reservations have been disposed of. The labor provisions of the peace treaty would, if adopted by the Senate, reduce the standard of American labor. Personally, I object to the international labor organization, which would put American labor, now superior to all other labor, into a machine which would seek to grind all labor into uniformity. The general average is lower than the American standard and a common average of labor, arrived at by this international body, would be lower than the prevailing American standard. Moreover, with the revolutionary and socialistic tendencies of other governments, it would put into international organization elements and forces that would be hostile to our form of government and would aid the spirit of Bolshevism. 'It was J. Reuben Clark who first pointed out tp Utah people the perils of the Labor covenant in his speech at the Tabernacle. The bitter partisans of the league denounced him for exposing just those defects .which Senator King now prides and plumes himself on laying bare. In their general attack on Mr. Clark these little Americans thought to discredit him in the eyes of Labor by alluding to his criticism of the Labor covenant and, in their pettiness, they did not hesitate to make the mean and base argument that he was prejudiced because he happend to be chief counsel for a great corporation. Presumgentlemen will now extol Senator King ably the same liberal-minde- d as a patriot for trying to do that which they formerly denounced as SOME pro-Germa- n. 5 will bring satisfaction to all of us who have been offended, and some-tim- s enraged, by the retention in office of a pygmy with a hard heart. It is an illuminating revelation of character when we discover the secretary pardoning conscientious objectors and, on the other hand, defending the death sentences passed by a court-martion weary heroes who fell asleep on duty. It is natural to expect of such a one that he would find extraordinary delight in disciplining the big men of the army who have demanded reforms. The newspaper account of the debate between the secretary and the senator gives us the true measure of our little war lord. Whenever an inferior officer gets into, a disagreement with his superior he is likely to get the ax very suddenly, Senator Chamber-lai- n declared. That is not a fact, Secretary Baker said. But I say it is, Senator Chamberlain responded. We know it up here. Of course, Mr. Baker said, when an officer comes up to congressional committees and says things that are independent of department views, you class anything that happens to him after punishment. Take your own actions, said Senator Chamberlain. What did you do to General Kenly for his aircraft statements up here? He was not disciplined, Secretary Baker returned. , No, you dont call it discipline, Senator Chamberlain remarked. What happend to Ansell? (former acting judge advocate general.) You put him in a place of innocuous desuetude and reduced him in al rank. I did that, Mr. Baker replied. He was not only disagreeing with his superior, he was slandering him. Yes, and what became of Adjutant General McCain when he thought his office ought not to go under the general staff? asked Senator Chamberlain. I gave him the opportunity to command a division in the field, the hearts desire of every soldier, Mr. Baker said. Yes, but did he ask to be relieved? Senator Chamberlain persisted. office experience. I confess that I did not know his military record, Mr. Baker said. I thought he had Hed never had anything but commanded troops. Senator Chamberlain named other officers of lower rank and the secretary conceded that some of them had been demoted and trans- ferred. Nor should they lose sight of the fact that the Labor covenant is One of the men sentenced to death and pardoned by President just as much an integral part of the treaty as is the covenant of the Wilson was later awarded the crois de guerre for valor. That young League of Nations. If it be true that a reservation to the league man, had the sentence been carried out, would have been shot to covenant will make it necessary to resubmit the treaty to Germany it death by his own comrades and would have filled a grave as shameful is quite as true that a reservation to the Labor covenant will have the as that of a spy or a traitor, the while our secretary would have been same effect. In point of fact, however, that will not be the effect of weeping his little heart out over a conscientious objector and, now and then, stabbing a gallant soldier in the back with an official any of the reservations. Senator King boasts of his reservation because it will protect dagger. American interests and, no doubt, we shall hear the supporters of the MOVE TO PREVENT STRIKES league praising him as vigorously as they denounced Republican senators for proposing reservations designed to safeguard the freedom, TMDER the present system a strike is the first step and arbi-v- J aye the very life, of the republic. tration follows, says Representative J. M. C. Smith of Michi: OUR NAPOLEON THE LITTLE gan, chairman of the House Committee on Labor, and he adds Why can we not make it possible to have arbitration first, and then there will be no cause for strikes. BAKER, our Napoleon the Little, was duly SECRETARY Chamberlain in a tilt between them at a subRepresentative Smith who thus epitomizes the entire question of committee hearing on the military system of administering justice. Capital and Labor so far as it affects the public and the governAfter denouncing one of the senators statements as untrue the ment, announces that if the administration fails to settle the industrial problem within the next few weeks, his committee will be called in secretary had his own falsehood rammed down his own throat. The little silky secretary has been working his mean and sinister session to give the problem thorough consideration and provide remewill with big men, wielding the official ax with the zest of a headsman dies. It is manifest that if his advice prevails the committee will not or a cannibal, and this probably inspired him with the belief that he fall into the error of the Industrial Conference convened by President could annihilate Senator Chamberlain. The way in which the Senator Wilson. He declares that the conference took hold of the problem executioner of brave men and true at the wrong end, wasting its time in squabbles about collective revealed him as a pussy-footin- g |