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Show THE CITIZEN i AMERICA S MISSION TP the United States has a mission ing only what Great Britain had been .Ajjit is to preach and practice liberty, doing, what Great Britain has done and justice for the enlightenment of since, what Great Britain still is dothe world. We shall succeed in this ing in Egypt and Persia. It was mission if we are true to our prin- wrong then; it is wrong now, but an official protest from the United States ciples and we shall fail if we compro- mise with wrong. If we adhere to the right we can do more good by our example than by joining a League of Nations which is founded on wrong. Those who are so earnestly, even passionately advocating the ratification of the league covenant without change are relying on arguments of v spell Americans should be ashamed. Lately, for example, the covenanters have sought to make a point of the fact that some of our statesmen did not protest when Germany appropriated Shantung. They assume to believe that Americans, if they are sincere now in attacking a pernicious covenant, should have gone on record a generation ago in condemning Germanys wrong. It is a marvellous mentality that can find any parallel between the circumstances of that day and this. Then there was no thought of a League of Nations of which the United States was to be a member with Germany any more than there was thought of a league of which Japan was to be a member. ONE or a personal protest from our leading statesmen was not so essential then as now. Then we prided ourself on minding our own business and we were so childish as to believe that Washington was rig! t when he warned us to abstain from entangling alNow we believe in entangliances. ling alliance at any rate the advocates of the league assure us we do , now we are about to enter a League of Nations with Japan as a partner in the contract, and the zealots who demand that the covenant shall be accepted without question are willing that we should ignore the serfdom of Shantung and make it the very keystone of the arch. It is no exaggeration to say that the covenanters are making Shantung the keystone of the League of Nations. Has not our President told us, in effect, that Japan would not have become a member of the league had he not agreed to abide by the secret treaty disposing of Shantung. Has he not made it clear that he condoned the injustice so that Japan would be kept from joining a hostile alliance? In other words, the United States bowed to the wrong of Shantung in order to found the league. And here it is well for every American to consider a significant phase which seems to have been overlooked. arguments for league is that it will change of the chief the old order and make impossible the robberies and tyrannies of which Germany was guilty. Supposedly the league was to end spoliation of the weak by the strong. Instead of trying to attain this ideal the league begins by making theft a cornerstone of the super-sovereignt- covenant. If we had been invited to join a league with Germany at the time of the first Shantung robbery who can doubt that American patriotism would have taken the same position it takes today? Who can doubt that Senators Lodge, Knox and Borah would have protested against an alliance which bound the United States to fight for Germanys possession of Shantung? We are invited to join the League of Nations and subscribe to Article iff It requires us by a moral obligation, more powerful, as the President frankly assures us, than any terri-ritor- y legal obligation to preserve the of any member of the league against outside aggression. If, for example, China should attack Japan to recover Shantung we would be morally bound to fight for Japan. a prejudiced mind seeking ONLYmake a political point could find any honest analogy between the efreumstanies surrounding our relations in the last decade of the nineteenth century and our international relations in the second decade of the twentieth century. This is not to say that a protest by us would not have been justified a gener-atioago, but the relations of nations were not the same. Germany was do inter-ivlKlon- opponents of the present have employed the word to describe what they believe will be the relationship of the nations under the covenant. They say that the United States will be controlled by other nations, either by legal compact or by moral power. Have we not an example of the operation of the league in the intimidation of our President by Japan at Versailles. His own delegation submitted to hinr a memorandum which practically amounted to a protest against the Shantung arrangement. That was the real American view. What did the President do? He yielded to Japan and sanctioned a 0 perfidious compact enslaving 36,000,-00- THE al n y people. Very clearly the moral power, the coercive force of the was at work. It made the freest, richest and most powerful of nations acquiesce in the rotten wrong sponsored by Japan. When our representative yielded, however good his motives, he placed a blot on the escutcheon of the United States. He forgot the true mission of our country. He repudiated 150 years of our history. He insulted the fathers of the republic. Virtually he issued a proclamation enslaving 36,000,000 people. And yet there are those who have the presumption to liken him to the President who signed the proclamation of emancipation. super-sovereignt- y By F. P. Gallagher But if we compromise with wrong to make the league operative we shall prevent wars, is the crowning argument of the defenders of the covenant. The weakness of this argument is that the covenanters cannot show how the league will prevent wars, whereas those who oppose the present form of league can give strong reasons for believing that it will be the fertile source of wars. More than this, they can show that the whole structure of the league is based on the use of force. It is an alliance of the powerful nations to It is an oppose any counter-alliancalliance of the powerful nations to regulate the weaker nations. It is an alliance by which an imperialistic member such as Great Britain hopes to hold hundreds of millions of human beings in subjection in Ireland, India, Egypt and in the British possession of Persia. last-stan- d e. newly-acquire- d a very true sense INtions has been in a League of Naexistence since the armistice was signed. It has not been able to prevent war. The best it has been able to do is to meet force with force. Our own soldiers Siberia to are fighting in. n railroad open keep the and thereby help a certain Russian faction. Admitting that the Bolshevik! deserve to be beaten, does no? the presence of our soldiers in Siberia demonstrate that, as a member of the entangling alliance we must send our army to other continents to fight battles in which we could not possibly have been concerned a few years ago? And now there is a proposal that American soldiers shall do police work in Silesia to safeguard the elections. We are urged to take upon our shoulders the guardianship of parts of Asia Minor as mandatary and attempt the stupendous task of regulating ferocious peoples who have been slaughtering one another for thousands of years for the love of far-awa- y Trans-Siberia- God. league were based primarily arbitration and conciliation, instead of upon a plan to enforce peace, we would not be morally bound to take up quarrels quite foreign to us. The main trouble with this league is Article X, and provisions which legalize war in some instances and The make it mandatory in others. treaty makes it an alliance for war. It binds us morally to go to war every time an executive committee tells us to. the IFupon Nor is the league a democratic institution. It is founded, not on the votes of the people, but upon the votes of governments. It is an artisto-crati- c institution. The executive council will be a kind of cabal to run the world. How much has the world gained if a League of Nations is formed to rule the world by force? And that league starts with the enslavement of Shantung and underwrites the control of the British empire over hundreds of millions of subject peoples. Nevertheless the form of the league can be changed and it can be made to fit the real needs of mankind. It is cowardly to say that we must surrender to wrong in order to obtain a faulty covenant.. It is better for the United States to stand up in all its power and majesty and say to the world: This is the right; do it, and we shall be glad to join with you in a league founded upon right. TF it be argued that President Wilson abandoned his fourteen points because of secret treaties, it can be argued with crushing force that Europe and Japan are not fit to join a League of Nations which has for its main purposes liberty, justice and peace. The United States is able to enter the league with clean hands; Europe and Japan are not. Which side should surrender the side which demands a covenant of liberty and justice or the side which stands for injustice and thralldom? The side that is in the wrong should yield even though it be necessary to send the pact back to Europe for the ratification of amendments. And when the pact does go back America can say to Europe that no covenant founded on the old wrongs of autocracy can succeed, that the only covenant which has a chance of permanency is one that is founded on liberty and justice for all. If weak Japan feels strong enough to do wrong, mighty America should be strong enough to do right. EVILS OF GOVERNMENT There are 1,001 reasons against government ownership with its resultant strangulation of individual or national development. Here are 26 of them: Government ownership Discourages, initiative, Promotes autocracy, Retards development. Breeds paternalism. Builds political machines. Confiscates property. Destroys efficiency, Extends governmental espionage, Perpetuates bureaucracy, Incites bolshevism, Creates class distinctions, Encourages official insolence, Impairs communication, Delays transportation, Rewards incompetency, Eliminates competition, Creates monopolies, Establishes wage inequalities, Debauches the electorate, Entices people from farms, Discriminates against private enterprise, Imposes high taxes, Increases rates, Diminishes service, Spreads dry rot, Provokes profanity. |