OCR Text |
Show BEVERIDGE AT A DISADVANTAGE. In his running debate with Mr. Bryan, Senator Beveridge is making some wild breaks. He refers to the Japanese incident in California as a "practical "practi-cal nullification of a treaty with Japan because of San Francisco's attitude,'.' which is all sorry rot, and adds, "Had wc been compelled to engage in hostilities over it, nothing more absurd'or more awful could happen." It is pitiable to see a Senator of the United States make such a spectacle of himself. No treaty was nullified. The treaty was never in-1 tended td cover such a case. It was never thought of by either party to the treaty; it was something which no treaty could cover because it was included in the rights which the States reserved for themselves, them-selves, and which the Constitution never gave to the treaty-making power.. The utmost that could be claimed for it was that by indirection it was the duty of the Government to give to Japanese children the same school facilities that are given the children chil-dren of other foreigners in this country. But that San Francisco had alreadj' done. It had opened its high' schools and universities to the Japanese, but it declined to permit full grown Japanese students in liavA soars hpsirlo tho littlo miccott nf frrm 19 in 15 years of age in San Francisco. And there is no power in the Constitution or in any treaty made under that Constitution to make them do it. There was never any danger of war and there would never have been any. noise over the matter had the President been self contained enough to have explained to the Japanese Minister that the Constitution gave him no power to interfere with the rules a San Francisco Board of Education might make for the government of her schools ; that under the "most favored nation" clause the most he could do was to see that the schools provided for Japanese children should be as good as the best, and this San Francisco had already provided. But Beveridge goes on to treat the action of Gen. Funston and the navy at the time of the earthquake earth-quake and fire in San Francisco as an invasion by the army and navy without the request of the Governor Gov-ernor or Legislature, a clear violation of States' rights, which is baby talk. Both were there because they had a right to be there; both had a right to interfere in-terfere for the protection of United States property, and behind all that, behind all human laws the men of that army and navy were Americans, the thought behind their work was the thought that prompts a man to plunge into a river or lake to save a person who is drowning. If Senator Beveridge can find no better argument in favor of the centralization of Federal power in this country, Mr. Bryan ought to have an easy walkover in debate with him. |