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Show THE CITIZEN 4 fied the treaty so far as the United States was concerned their belief would not have mattered one way or the other had Europe acquiesced in the changes. If the Democrats really had desired a League of Nations more than a political issue they should have given our European allies a chance to accept the reservations. If our allies are satisfied the Democrats should he. From the American viewpoint a viewpoint supported by few Democratic senators an unmodified treaty was a menace to the very foundations of our government and to the rule of the people cvery- where. It is better, therefore, that there should be no league at all than that we should ally ourselves with imperialistic nations determined to rule the world by might by the might of greater armies and navies than ever existed in the. annals of peace-tim- e military and naval establishments. Europe has fully earned the rebuke she has received. Our satisfaction in administering the rebuke would be greater had our own representative at Versailles stood heroically by his fourteen points and refused to compromise the cause of free institutions. Let us hope that, in one respect, the action of the Senate will be a benefit to the whole world. Let us hope that Europe will see in the action the firm resolve of a government by the people not to yield to despotism anywhere, not to place the seal of its approval on ancient wrongs, not to enslave others or permit itself to be enslaved. Let us hope that Europe will begin to see itself as we have seen it and will try to purge itself of imperialism, of the practice of plunder, of the rule of the strong that holds subject peoples in thrall, of a militarism, which, with a hypocrisy common to all militarism, boldly proclaims itself a champion of peace. Let us hope that Europe will drop its plan of forging a ring of steel about the world and will turn its face toward a new order of liberty and justice. The Democratic position was arbitrary because the league could still function in many important respects. It could provide the machinery by which the terms agreed to by Germany would be enforced and it would offer a wide field for conciliation, arbitration and cooperation. Moreover, in any vital contingeny, the allies could appeal confidently to the United States that is to say, to the Congress of the United States to declare war in case civilization should be threatened once more. The Democrats preferred, however, to assume that everything had gone to the dogs bee? use they were not given their way. They recalled the story of the little boy who, after he had been spanked, told his parents that he had gone into the backyard and eaten two smooth ones and one woolv one. Senator Hitchcock and the other Democrats of his coterie never failed to draw a mournful picture of what would result by the rejection of the treaty a rejection for which they must take the responsibility. They tell us we will lose $500,000,000 worth of German ships and $800,000,000 worth of Germany property seized in the United States to pay our war claims. What would it profit America to gain $1,300,000,000 or $13,000,-00000 and lose her soul? It is just because the opponents of an unmodified treaty believed that we were selling the soul of America that they demanded adequate safeguards. By the baleful warning fires lighted by Article X the champions of reservations caught a glimpse of the new order of things the United States was called upon to support. Great Britain, as a result of historic conditions going back centuries before the great war, conditions over which the present generation of Britons have only limited control, has come into possession the habitable area of the globe and is required to of nearly one-hadegovern nearly 500,000,000 human beings. Whatever the wishes or sires of a majority of the white people of her empire may be she has before her the most colossal problem of imperialism ever presented to any people. Fewer than 60,000,000 whites are expected to hold more than 400,000,000 subjects in awe. Weighted with an unparalleled war debt, tormented by revolutions at home and abroad and facing a future from which the shadow of revolution never will be removed, Great Britain looks about her for the means of dominating an empire which is a world in itself. If she possessed unlimited power she would feel secure, but the world war and its 0, amazing sequels have burned deep into her brain the painful consciousness that her power is not equal to the task which the white mans burden has placed upon her. Many in the United States regard the British world mission as benevolent, as manifest destiny, as part of the divine scheme of things and look with sympathy upon the Herculean task. Others regard British imperialism as a sinister force which differs but little from the force which George III exerted in his efforts to keep control of the American colonies. At best it is an imperialism that has not to reason why, has but to do and die. The League of Nations with Article X in it calls upon the United States to guarantee the British empire, and not only that, but to guarantee the French, Italian and Japanese empires and' the boundaries of all the new nations set up in Europe. The United States is the last reserve of fighting manpower in the white world and the European empires turn to us with hands and implore us to give the guarantee. If that guarantee were to save a free civilization perhaps we would not look upon it with such dread, but when we consider that the guarantee may plunge us into war at any time to uphold infamies like that of Shantung and tyrannies such as those exerted in India, Ireland or Persia we must needs pause and, in the pause, shudder at the prospect of linking our destiny with wars of oppression. In our humble judgment one of the most important wars threatening the world is that between Bolshevik Russia and the British empire. Only the other day Lenine boasted that the road to India was open and hinted that soviet Russia would seize the first opportunity to go to the aid of the insurgents in Great Britains most populous war-palsi- colony. Better British control of India, however oppressive and unpro-- . gressive, we say, than Red ruin spreading all over the world. True, and Congress, some day, may decide to join with Great Britain and Europe to crush, once for all, the menace of Bolshevism, but in the face of such enormous potentialities Congress, and not an executive committee in Geneva, should decide the duty of our country. By means of the reservation to Article X the United States keeps the captaincy of its soul, the mastery of its fate, and loses not a whit of its power to support any just cause the world over. To give the coveted guarantee would weaken our position of moral leadership and make us part of a war machine controlled by Europe. To refuse the guarantee and yet join in all the voluntary of the treaty would be to strengthen our moral leadership and keep Europe on the qui vive to purify civilization and to exert its powers everywhere in the world for right. With the United States bound to a military compact Europe would proceed to extend the rule of might and neglect the rule of right. With the United States ready, but not bound, to support every just war for the protection of civilization, Europe would be constrained to drop the worst features of an imperialism which might easily degenerate into something as vicious as kaiserism, would be persuaded to grant political freedom wherever and whenever possible. The Democrats, in their partisan resentment, could not vision such a bright new order of world affairs. They think only of their defeat ; they lick their wounds and growl, and declare that there shall be no treaty at all unless it be a treaty wearing the brand of their party co-operati- leader. BRITISH INTERFERENCE lf dark-skinn- ed ed are strange, iconoclastic days. The British embassy at intervenes to tell our Senate what to do. Admit-cdl- y a great change since those days, a little more than a hundred 'ears ago, when British soldiers burned our capitol. Even ten years ago such interference would have been followed y an uproar of indignation all over the country. Today, perhaps in e he spirit of Article XI, of which our President is so proud, of this character may be regarded simply as a matter of oursc. That article, according to Mr. Wilson, gives each nation a THESE inter-erenc- |