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Show I I WILSON'S INSULTS TO THE SENATE . t If President Wilson had set out delib-H delib-H t I erately to defeat his own party he could not have committed greater blunders ' i than he has been guilty of in the last eight months. His defenders in the sen-. J tH ate must be on the verge of despair. No I matter how gallantly and energetically they battle for him he invariably make a false move that places new and almost intolerable burdens upon him. No President ever did anything so stu- m 11 T)id in a political sense as did President H i . Wilson, when, just before the November 11 eledtion, he "declared that Republicans H if must not be elected because they could Hi II not be trusted in office during the war. M $ That mistake brought swift rebuke, for H .M his party lost at the polls. Since the? the Hiy President has gone blindly from one KJ I blunder to another, j I Had he been animated by a truly states H manlike 'spirit he would have had the full H text of the peace treaty in the hands of B I every senator at the opening of congress. H I In extenuation of his failure to do this it Hl 1 was announced that he had agreed with H'ii Lloyd George and - Clemenceau not to H H make the treaty public until it should be H II signed' or rejected by the Germans. -It H was a feeble plea, inasmuch as there was H I no compelling reason why he should have H I entered into such an Agreement, but har- H I dly had the state department "made ts Hf I announcement than the dispatches in- j formed us that Lloyd George and Clem B i eticeau had been willing to publish the H I treaty but had acceded to the President s H -I request to keep it secret. While the H h President was mounting his maximum Bj 1 about "open covenants openly arrived at H "he was whispering to the British and B J French premiers that they would greatly B; favor him if they agreed to suppress the B very treaty itself until he gave the word B" '' for its release. B'j I There was a special reason whv he d should have made the full text nublic as Hffl soon as it was presented to the Germans. B, ji He had included in it the covenant for the k League of Nations, a covenant which was H! t alter ie whole aspect of internation- Hm al relations. It was something new in his- Hi i tory and the President had insisted that HI it must be incorporated in the treaty. Hfl Therefore he should have given the sen- Hl I ate a chance to consller the covenant sep- i I, arately from the treatv so that in the Hni course of the negotiations they could Hjf amend it before the Germans attached Hfj ' their signatures. It would have paved the Hf way for an agreement with the senate Hl that would have-made the early ratifica- H t tion of the treaty possible. H& I The President, however, wished to H I S keep the senate in the dark until the Ger- H k mans signed. Why? He had boasted H a that ho would so interweave the coveu- H ft I ant and the treaty that the senate could H V 8 not disentangle them. To make his boast H 1 1 good he was compelled to keep the text HH jl of the treatv out of the hands of the sen- H: I ators, for, if he had given it to them, thev HLf j could have proposed amendments and H & 1 thus frustrated his plan. Morevor, by H j preventing an agreement with the senate H j he would have ap olitical issued should Hr the senators reject his covenant.. He Hf. could crv out that the senate had nullified H:" all his efforts at Paris. He could pose as H, , a martyr and go to the country for in- m ' dorsement. An agreement with the sen- H . ate would have taken away all his am- munition. K " ; Nor did the contingency that the Ger- H mans might reject the treaty justify his B course. The covenant of the League of B Nations would remain even after reiec- B tion. It was the covenant rather than Bl: the treaty that' called foiv change The Hl J l treaty, relating' as it' did to boundaries. Hi( nd reparations was, for the most" part, a European affair. It was the covenant not the treaty that fastened upon the United Un-ited States vital and fateful obligations. . In his efforts to keep the treaty from the senate the president acted like an i angry schoolmaster trying to play even with a pupil. He permitted it to be pub- lished in Eurdpe and his own aides in Paris furnished copies of it to banking houses in New York. When Senator Lodge went to New York he was subjected sub-jected to Wall Street ridicule because he and his fellow senators had not been able to get possession of the treaty. The war waged by the President on the senate has become a scandal to the whole world. Goodwin's Weekly. |