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Show THE CITIZEN 4 Britain, which accepted as a matter of course or, one is almost tempted to say, as a matter of divine right. Other excuses for surrendering the ships were given, evidently so that if one excuse failed to appeal to all or most of us, each of us could pick the one most alluring to his fancy. As an appropriate climax, Secretary Daniels should award a distinguished service medal to the members of the shipping board, of" is the President alone to blame ? teen to one, but common clay, or, perhaps, Commoner clay, if we may be permitted the pun. For years his foes had questioned the soundness of his judgment and it was fatal for him that, in his first position of power, he should commit an error of judgment which was to lose him not only the office but the trust and confidence of a devoted following that never had wavered before in their adoring faith. To tell Ambassador Dumba of Austro-Hungar- y that the Presidents notes on the submarine question were not to be taken at their face value and that they were meant mostly for home consumption, or words of that tenor, was to give aid and comfort to the enemy and to spur him on to deeds that could not fail to cause war. It was because Germany and Austraia thought we did not 'mean what we said that they were not to be deterred from their insults, outrages and atrocities. It is true that the President had committed a somewhat similar 'error of judgment when he employed the phrase too proud to fight in one of his speeches, but, at the worst, the speech was not made directly to the threatening foe, whereas Bryans conversation with the Austrian envoy could only be considered a direct diplomatic communication from the secretary of state. It was one of the unhappiest blunders ever made by a statesman and the ghost of it will haunt Mr. Bryan to his dying day. Not all his magnetism can hypnotize even his old admirers into forgetfulness of that mistake. They may be glad to regard him as one of our elder statesmen and love him for the old days and memories, but cannot picture him as ever again a presidential candidate. REFERENDUMS ON WAR the advice and consent of William Jennings Bryan, if BYheandhaswith his way; the Democratic party is to have a platform, one of the planks of which will provide that a declaration of war, except in case of attack, shall be made by theUnited States only on a vote of the people. The proposal of a referendum on war is not a novel or strange idea, but at this time it takes on a revolutionary aspect when put forth by a Democrat. It is quite inconsistent with the doctrine of the leader of the Democratic party who, while in Paris, agreed that the United States should declare war at the dictation of an executive committee of. the nations. Even the Congress of the United States, to which our constitution commits the right of declaring war, was to be a free agent no longer. It was to lose its independence and to be bound by the instructions of the Supreme Council of the League of a GIVING UP THE SHIPS BRITAIN GREATshe sees is so in the habit of taking the things she wants nothing grotesque in demanding and getting the great German passenger liners from the one country that refused to accept anything from the peace conference. The only German property of vast value that remained in our hands was the shipping we interned at the time the United States entered the war. It was of the nature of an accident and most of us believed that the German ships would remain in the possession of the United States as a slight recompense for the billions we were expending to save the allies from defeat. If Great Britain, through centuries of acquisition, acquired the habit of demanding and receiving, the Democratic administration seems to have contracted the habit of giving things away including itself. The President found himself exceedingly popular in Paris every time he gave something away. Great Britain, France, Italy and other European powers assured him that it was better to give than to receive and, in the next breadth, demanded that he give them everything they asked. And he did ; and in so doing1 he acquired another habit, that of fabricating specious excuses for his surrenders. It is not amazing, therefore, that the shipping board can find only silly excuses for giving away our last remnant of German property. We are gravely informed that the ships have been awarded to Great Britain by. a board created in conformity with the terms of the peace treaty. To meet the perfectly logical objection that the United States has not ratified the peace treaty, the administration cooly and brazenly adopts the theory that the articles of the treaty must be carried out by the United States notwithstanding. If the President is not cautious he is apt to find Tumulty giving away the White House brie a brae or the presidential golf sticks to Ambassador Grey. Apparently there would be just as much reason in the act as in giving away the German liners to Great Britain. At the time the controversy arose our state department timidly pointed out that Great Britain had seized in German harbors tankers belonging to the Standard Oil Company. No less timidly was it suggested that if the United States surrendered German property to Great Britain it was no more than fair that Great Britain should return American property to the American owner. It was one of those fifty-fift- y propositions which so appeal to the American mind, but does not interest Great apparently anything less than ninety-te- n Britain. A prize court awarded the American property to Great Nations. Nor must we lose sight of the fact that the treaty was so formulated that it established an alliance for war, that it created dominant and subject peoples and then, by Article X, provided that the member nations should preserve one anothers territorial integrity. Peoples who had yearned for freedom and had fought for it through the centuries were subjected to the sovereignty of alien and powerful nations and their subjection was confirmed by a covenant of the dominant nations. The United States was asked, we may even say ordered, by the leader of the Democratic party, to subscribe without reservations to a covenant which, in the first place, provided innumerable causes and sources of war and then bound the member nations to take part in these wars by the edict of a council. Essentially it was an agreement among the rulers of nations. To that extent it was aristocratic and. despotic. It left nothing to the choice of the peoples. They were still to be pawns in the game of war as under the old regime of absolutism. Their wishes were to be disregarded and, so far as the United States was concerned, the legislative body in which reposed the right to declare war, was to lose its freedom of decision and action under the restraint of covenant guarantees. A moral obligation arbitrarily assumed was to be more powerful than our constitution in controlling the action of Congress. Viewed in this light, Mr. Bryans proposaPceases to be commonplace. It becomes a challenge to the Democratic President who signed the treaty of Versailles. It is a warning to him that a party insurgent is to defy his leadership, and repudiate the contract by which a com- mittee of nine, sitting in Geneva or Brussels, is to decide whether or not the United States shall wage war. The merit of the proposal is open to grave question. If we look back .upon the period just preceding our entrance into the world war we shall be convinced that a referendum would not have kept us out of the conflict. In 1915 the people probably would have voted for peace. In 1916 they did vote for peace, for was not the President elected on his promise to keep us out of war? In 1917 they would have voted for war. We can see that the referendum of 1915 would have been useless as a guide in the crisis of 1917. Another referendum would have been necessary. More than that if a referendum had been held in January, 1917, another referendum would have been required in February, or not later than April, of the same year. Ours is a representative democracy. Wisely the .fathers assigned to a Congress elected by the people the right to declare war and -- . |