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Show 0 Published Every Saturday BY G00DWIN8 WEEKLY PUBLISHING CO., INC. L. J. BRATAGER, Business Mgr. F. P. GALLAGHER, Editor and Mgr. 8UB8CRIPTION PRICE: In United 8tates, Canada and Mexico $2.50 per year, the Including postage $1.50 for six months. Subscriptions to all foreign countries, within the Postal Union, $4.50 per year. 8lngle copies, 10 cents. Payment should be made by Check, Money Order or Registered Letter, payable to The Citizen. Address all communications to The Citizen. Entered as second-clas- s matter, June 21, 1919, at the Postofflce at 8alt Lake City, Utah, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 31M2-1Ness Bldg. Phone Wasatch 5409. .8alt Lake City, Utah. 3 a ft P. SHOULD FOIL WILSON PLANS spokesmen for the president describe him as already making the necessary strategic moves to control the Democratic convention and, at the same time, outgeneral the Republicans. The president is sure that he can dispose of William J. Bryan with ease and thus prevent the adoption of a plank favoring reservations to the league covenant. Those who have seen Mr. Bryan in action at Democratic conventions, however, venture the opinion that a violent surprise is in store for the president and his faction. Those who impart to us some of the thoughts the president cherishes picture him as confident that the Republican convention will adopt a plank on the League of Nations and the treaty that will handicap the' party in the campaign. The president thinks that if Hiram Johnson is nominated the Republican party must come out unequivocally against a League of Nations. On the other hand, he feels that the Democratic party will be in a good position even though the Republican convention nominates a candidate committed to the Lodge reservations. The dilemma is not, perhaps, as serious as the president imagines. The spirit of the Lodge reservations is simply the protection of It is American interests against entangling foreign alliances. Americanism versus internationalism, but that does not mean that the Republican party is opposed to a League of Nations. Even Senator Johnson, irrevocably opposed as he is to the present covenant, has never declared that he is opposed to a League of Nations. It is quite conceivable that the present covenant, even if ratified by the United States, would be subjected almost immediately to a process of amendment. As a matter of fact, the president belongs to a small faction of zealots who regard the present covenant as the last sacred word on a League of Nations. And there is a profound suspicion that many of this faction hold to their uncompromising attitude simply because they consider it necessary politics for the presidential campaign. Any compromise, in their opinion, would mean the surrender of the entire Democratic position. The president feels a kind of snug satisfaction that the Republicans must make the first pronouncement. He reckons that whatever that pronouncement may be the Democrats can furnish a destructive counterblast. The Republicans should consider the advisability of making a general, rather than a specific, deckiration regarding reservations. Even Great Britain, as we know from Lord Grey, is not unchangably committed to the present covenant. Nor is any of the other high contracting powers. The entire form of the league is apt to undergo Semi-offici- al 0 0 a change if America is true to itself and declines to indorse a league for war. It may be sufficient, therefore, if the platform declares in favor of international agreements to preserve the peace of the world and against any such agreements as will diminish the soverignty of the United States or subordinate its interests to those of any other nation. Such a plank would not be an evasion of the issue, because the issue is larger than the present covenant. The heart of the present covenant, as the president has pointed out, is Article X, which gives the league the character of a military alliance to enforce peace. Any military alliance to enforce peace is liable to fix an unequal burden on the United States, because, as has been apparent during the last year, the future wars are to be wars for the preservation of empires and newly created nations. The European powers are fighting now and perhaps will be fighting for many years to retain the territories they gained by the treaty of Versailles. It is to the interest of all nations to have a league which will preserve peace, but the European powers see that peace is impossible so long as the struggle for empire keeps up. Moreover, it is a continuing struggle. It becomes a question, not of a war now and then, but of unceasing warfare. Great Britain, France, Italy and the other powers who enlarged their territorites by the treaty understood a state of war was to continue for many years and that, in such circumstances, their interests would be best served by a league which should be a military alliance. On the other hand the interests of the United States would be served best by a league providing for disarmament, for a court of international justice and for tribunals of arbitration, a league excluding any contract to use military force for the preservation of the territories of member nations. Consequently the correct American position is to indorse international agreements calculated to preserve peace and to oppose international agreements which, by their very nature, are certain to perpetuate war. The people have indicated that they arc in favor of a treaty which will safeguard our traditional policies, interests and our free dom of action. Naturally tiie president wishes to maneuver so that the issue will be confined to his treaty and covenant. He wishes, for political of effect, to limit the question to the ratification or the present treaty. If the treaty itself is the sole issue then here must be a declaration for the Lodge reservations at the Republican convention. non-ratificati- on |