OCR Text |
Show LANSING STUMBLES. Since t ii n downfall of Ilryan as score-' tary of !-t;itti li sun '-.-sor hai stoen1'! ii. cautious ill id .4 a IV course until hi equilibrium was dist urlird ly President Wilson 's surprising peuee uotu to tlu' 1'ndliereuts. Then the te:retary utterly1 lust his .balance and plunged dizzily downward , into a disastrous blunder.1 When he picked himself up he found a curtain schoolmaster standing over him with a rod and commanding him to mako a public apology before the en- ; i' tiro school. This the erring youth did with abundant expressions of sorrow, but he could not wholly undo what his folly had wrought. i The president's note was open to the suspicion of ulterior motives do- j spite its careful tone. If it were to j run t ho gauntlet of suspicion in all the belli per cut conn tries it was essential that the slate department oflieiala should speak and act with tho most delicate finesse. But Secretary Lansing had been lifted to a great height and was giddy. He issued an interview in which he indicated that the United States -wanted peace in Europe, Eu-rope, not so much because of tho humanitarian hu-manitarian reasons expressed in the j president 's note, but. because of the ; lact that the United States was in great danger of being drawn into the war. We refer to it as a "fact" and undoubtedly it is a fact. Tho secre- 1 tary spoke tho truth, but he selected tho worst possible time for his statement. state-ment. The president already had said enough to arouse resentment among the entente powers, especially in that part of his noto where he seemed to declare that the objects of both sides were much the same, and again when he seemed to say that the Germans were willing to concede some of the chief things the entente powers pretended to bo tight in g for. It was a tense moment mo-ment and Secretary Lansing, if we may be permitted a homely figure of speech, "spilled the beans.'' The events of the last few weeks show that wo are nearer war with Germany Ger-many than at any time since the Lusi-tan'ui Lusi-tan'ui controversy and perhaps nearer than over before. Germany has indicated indi-cated a purposo of resuming unlimited "(rightfulness'' upon the seas. Already Al-ready there have been acts which are clear violations of the submarine pledge given in tho Lusitania dispute. And now Germany seeks to get around the pledge by regarding ships "armed for defense only ' ' as warships despite the fact that they never have been so regarded by international law. ! On the one hand the president had aroused the suspicion and fears of the entente powers. Secretary Lansing made matters worse by arousing the fears and suspicions of the central empires. em-pires. The entente powers suspect that; the administration at Washington is seeking advnntago for the United States behind the pleasant mask of hu:nanitavianis:n. Now the central empires em-pires suspect that the president 's flattering flat-tering support of the German plea for peace conceals a purpose to make war on Germany if unrestricted submarine w a r fa re is resumed. Bu t whether or not the suspicions take this definite form as a result of Secretary Lansing's original statement it is ccrtaiu that the iatement has fostered doubts and fears which the president 's note sought to allay. The secretary 's blunder is quite liable lia-ble to be his undoing. The president is one of the most careful of men. He hesitates to trust, anyone with the formulation for-mulation of important diplomatic correspondence. cor-respondence. 1 1 is not from a personal per-sonal inclination toward czar ism, but from motives of caution. And his experiences ex-periences of the last two years have served to confirm his belief in the wisdom wis-dom of his method. Secretary Bryan failed him at a critical moment. Now Secretary Lansing ma lies a blunder of almost equal gravity. |