OCR Text |
Show WILSON'S RESPONSIBILITY. By a vote of forty to thirteen, more than a two-thirds majority, the United States senato rejected amendments to the arbitration treaties with Great Britain, Japan and six other nations and ratified the treaties without a change. The amendments wero designed to withhold from arbitration such questions ques-tions as immigration, admittance of aliens to domestic schools, affairs Involving In-volving the Monroe doctrine, and the provision of tho Panama canal act exempting American coastwise ships from tho payment of tolls. Tho senators suppressed partisan interests in-terests so as to free the administra-tiou administra-tiou from needless embarrassment in its foreign negotiations. -They desire to give President Wilson a free hand in developing his foroign policy, unhampered un-hampered by narrow legislative handicaps. handi-caps. Undoubtedly tho people of tho country will commend the senate for taking this liberal view, but thoy will hold tho prcsideut responsible if his foreign policy proves disastrous. .'It would bo unfortunate should tho president conceive tho idea that tho action ac-tion of the senate warrants him in spurning the suggestions embodied in the defeated amendments. Tho people of the west and of tho Pacific coast, for example, will insist upon the rights of the states to make laws which shall discourage the holding of lauds by Asiatics and which shall prevent the admittance of such aliens to our domestic do-mestic schools. Unless Asiatic immigration is checked, tho peoples of tho far cast will becomo dominant on our Pacific coast. This i3 a situation that cannot bo tolerated. Thej-o aliens cannot be assimilated oven in a patriotic sense. They will remain loyal to the traditions tradi-tions of a civilization that has nothing noth-ing in common with our civilization. If they take possession of tho Pacific coast and of tho west, that portion ot our country will be practically a dependency de-pendency of Japan and China. The negro problem cannot compare with it iu seriousness, because tho negroes recognize rec-ognize no allegiance except that to the United Slates; whereas tho Asiatics Asi-atics will constantly be looking across the western sea for inspiration in thoir political activities. It i3 well that tho president and Secretary Bryan havo been left froe to uegotiate with Japan concerning tho California land quostion, but they must not take this as a license to concede con-cede the Japanese demands. If such concessions aro made in a treaty, the question will arise whether the United Slates, through a treaty with a foreign for-eign nation, can annul laws mado by a state under powers reserved to the states. In ether words, will the constitution con-stitution make tho treaty the supreme law of tho land, and thereby take away from tho states those powers which the constitution itself provided should remain in the states? Whether this question comes up ns a result of a.lrcaty with Japan or not, it will be settled ultimately in tho supreme su-preme court of the United Staten. It is one of tho moat mooted conatitu-tional conatitu-tional questions, and the position of the United States as a world power must hasten its determination. Tho pooplo of tho west will look forward with interest and anxioty to tho outcome, out-come, for they fool that upon its settlement set-tlement will depend whother this region re-gion shall move forward to a position of prosperity unexamplod in tho history his-tory of tho world, or whether it shall succumb to the blighting inertia of Asiatic domination. |