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Show TEXT OF PRESIDENT'S APPEAL FOR COVENANT TO DENVER AUDIENCE T ENVER, Colo., Sept. 25. In his address in support of the treaty-covenant today President Wilson said, in part: I always feel a thrill of pride standing before a great company of my fellow citizens to speak of this great document, which we shall always know as the treaty of Versailles. 1 am proud to speak for I I it, because for the first time in the his- I tory of international consultation men j have turned away from the ambirior.s of' government and sought to advance the I fortunes of peoples. 1 say without hesi- tation that this is a great document of liberation. The center and heart of; this document is that great instrument which is placed at the beginning of it, j the covenant of the league of nat ions. I think everybody now understands j that you cannot work .this treaty wiih- out that covenant; but you will no- I men look at things without tragedy. Men everywhere will say the proh-j proh-j I em of labor is not any more than the I problem of humanity. In the covenant the moral forces of I the world are mobilized. For what pur- pose? Germany Excluded. My fellow cit izer.s, the membership of this great league of nations includes all the great, mighty nations of the world. It is not going to include Germany for the time being. Germany is not one of the great nations of the world. But all of the nations who have power are going to be members of this league. No matter what differences arise they "in ii ul i eson 10 :t r wunout i irsi iinv-inr iinv-inr done one of t wo thinirs submitted sub-mitted the matter of controversy to arbitration, or having" submitted it to the consideration of the councii of the league of nations, laid before that council all the truths of the tacts, so that the council may publish the facts to the world. You understand that there are six months allowed for the league's consideration consid-eration of these facts by the council and at the" expiration of these six months if they are not ready to 'accept the views of tho council in the settlement of the dispute they will still not po to war for a not her t hree months. After this they sub nii t the differences between them to the judgment of the league, and just as certain as they do this they will not resort to war. for men will know that there will be a deliberation council, and the most dangerous thing for a bad thought is to expose it to the opinion of the world. Not in Council. Now. you have hoard of six votes belonging be-longing to Great Britain. Those six votes are not in the council ; they are in the assembly. And the - interesting thing is that the assembly does not vote. I must modify that statement a little, but essentially essen-tially it is absolutely true. In every matter mat-ter in which the assembly is given a vote, and there are only four or five, its vote does not count unless concurred in by the representatives of all of the nations represented on the council, so there is no validity to the vote of the assembly unless approved by the I'nited States, so the vote of the United States is as big as the six votes of the Frit ish empire. I think that is a perfectly safe situation. Do you think it unjust that there should be some opportunity of debate given to that little country in the south, New Zealand? Zea-land? Po you think it unjust that Australia Aus-tralia should be allowed to take part in the debate? , Do you think it unjust that that little nation in t he south of Africa should be represented? To judge such you are outside out-side authorities. Those two men who represented South Africa at Paris were two dist in gin shed generals of the Boer army. They w ere two of the most intelligent men T have ever met, men w ho could talk with the best of statesmen. What About Canada? What about Canada ? Is not Canada a g-ood ne:ghbnr? Is not Ca nada more likely to agre with the I'm ted Sta tes than Great Britain? Canada has a speaking speak-ing power, and then for the first time in the history of t he world that great country. India, is given a voice unions; the nat ions of the virid. and I want to say that some of the wisest figures at the conference in Paris came from India. When you hear an opinion you do not count the number of people who hold it. you ask who said it. You weigh opinions, you do not count them, and the beauty of ail democracy is that every voice can be heard, every voice can have the privilege privi-lege of contributing to the final judgment. That is the object of it. n(--t? maL, wnn mis single exception 01 the provision in regard to the Transfer from the German empire of the Shantung province to Japan, practically nothing in the body of the treaty has seemed to constitute any great obstacle to its adoption. adop-tion. All the controversies, pll the talk have centered on the league of nations, and I am glad to see the Issues centered. One Vote in Council. I want to call to your attention and to point out what is not often enough explained ex-plained to audiences in this country tho actual const it ution of the league of nat ions. It consists of two bodies, a council and an assembly. The assembly is the numerous body. In it every self-go self-go erning si at e that has a vote on the league is represented, and not only the self -governing, independent Mates, but the self-governing colonies and the dominions, do-minions, such as Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa : they are nil represented in the assembly, and it is in the assembly that the combined representation rep-resentation of the several members of the British empire are assigned six votes. , and you are constantly being told that 1 Great Britain has six votes and we have j one. I want you to appreciate the full sign'ficance of that: they have six votes in the assembly, and the assembl doesn't vote. So that bubble is exploded. There are several matters in which the vote of the assembly must co-operate with the vote of the council, but In every ev-ery such case a unanimous vote of the council ;s necessary. Inasmuch pf the Vnited States is a permanent memher of the council, her vote is necessary to every ev-ery active policy of the 1 a cue. and therefore the single vote of the United States always counts six, so far as the votes of the British empire are concerned. con-cerned. Out of doors, that is to pay. out of the legislative halls, there is no organised nonosition to this treaty except among the people who tried to defeat the purposes pur-poses of this gnvernment in the war. Hvphen is the knife that is being struck into this document. The Issue is clearly drawn because, inasmuch as we are masters mas-ters of our own participation Jn the action ac-tion of the leaeue of nations, why do we need reservations? Relation to Labor. If we do not have this treaty of peace, labor will continue to be, not what it ought to be. a human function, but a purchasable pur-chasable commodity throughout the world. There is incorporated in the articles ar-ticles of this grea.t treaty a Magna Chart a for labor. There is set up a means of periodical examination of the conditions of labor all over the world, protecting the labor of women and children chil-dren that have not the physical endurance endur-ance to endure the burden put on them, and it is the duty of the nations of the world to study the methods of labor and raise the scale of human labor. ou know what that means. We have rot done our full duty in regard to the amelioration of the conditions of labor In America, but the conditions here are better bet-ter than anywhere else, and we now have an opportunity to exercise our full influence in-fluence to ra-ise the standard .verywnere to the levels we have tried to raise in this country, and also as between those who employ labor and those who labor. The htart of the world has never got into this business, the conscience has never been released along these lines in regard to the improvement of labor, and. more than that. unless we find some method, such as I have been alluding to, we will not have released the real energy en-ergy of labor. Men are not going to work and produce what they would produce pro-duce if they feel they are not justly treated, ami if you want to realize the real wealth of this count ry. then bring about the human relationship between employers and employees which will make them cola borers and partners and fellow workers. All of that is open to us under and through the instrumentality of the league of nations and under this great treaty, and still we debate whether we should ratify it or not! |
