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Show HARDING LEAGUE COURSE CLEAR Observer Holds No Charme in Attitude Was Made by President-Eiect Rv M ARK SI T I I X. National Political Correspondent of tin New York Evening PoSl ThK an leu- by Mark Sullivan not only makes clear Presidentelect President-elect Harding's position as t" a i ague of natli ns, imt reveals what 1 one of the imwt Interesting unwritten un-written stories of the campaign It also tells for the first time th i al facts back of the so-called ! Borah defection al tin height of th- ' ampalgUi NEW FORK, Nov 6 The league of jnatlons question hris so long been With us and is so surely destined to remain re-main with us, that the feelings of most ! persons -it this temporary resting point could probably be expressed accurate-j lly In the tired but still good naturcdl query of th" doughboy song "Where Do wc Go Prom Mere?" Where we shall go from here is In the hands of I'resldent-elect Harding and of the senate As to what the speech made while he Tas still In the league of nations and as to what action1 It is likely to take I shall say some-, thing later on. As to what Senator Harding's position will be, there Is no doubt I am well aware that part of the discussion in the recent campaign' rested upon the assumption that Hard-' lng's position is in doubt. Nevertheless I am very confident that Harding's position Is and always has been tho position which he expressed with particular par-ticular care In his August speech. That position, by the way, coincides exactly with a position which ho took in a specehc made while ho was still in the senate and before he whs nominated for the presidency, senator Harding u-h and Johnson from the position he I has taken In his August 2S spocch aftei It BAYS MWV DECEIVED, I The argument to the effect that 1 1 i Tiling's position on the league of nations na-tions w.is in doubt rested chleflv on the allegation that in his Dps Moines p ch on October 7, he made a :b.ingf In the direction of no league, that la to say, in the direction of Senators Borah Bor-ah Johnepn from the psltion he has taken in hi August 28 speech. This bell-f sincerely held bv many person had no real foundation and the way It aroused and spread like a leg-'n'l leg-'n'l is one of the most Interesting stor-! stor-! lr-. of thf- campaign Of course the Dee Bfblnes speech and the August 28 Bpei ch are both on record for uny one to see and compare. It Is entirely open for an one who cares to come to his own conclusloss. The fact is how- ' that literally millions of persons came to a conclusion on this point without ever having read the speeches. The legend was based on newspaper i headllnea.and the headlines in turn were based on detached fragments of the Des Moines speech. BPEE II IN BEST EVIDENCE Of the fact that Harding In his Des Moini 1 speech did not change his position po-sition from his August 28 speech, the two speeches are themselves the best evidence, But of the fact that Senator Sena-tor Harding was not under any pressure pres-sure from Borah or Johnson, of the fact that he had no Intention of changing chang-ing his position in the Des Moines speech, but, on the contrary", intended the Des Moines speech to be a reaffirmation reaffir-mation of his August 28 speech, and "1 the fact that pro league partisans who read the speech previous to Its delivery and free from the atmosphere of tlu? headlines, approved By all. the proof lies in what is one of the most Interesting unwritten stories of the campaign Early in October. a group of the pro-league supporters of Senator Harding Har-ding be tunc alarmed at the newspaper r porta to the offeu that Harding was yielding to benutor Borah and Johnson. John-son. In this state of alarm they determined de-termined to Satisfy themselves before they were willing to go further in their support of Senator Harding. The: met In Now York and expressed their : i hnrc hi-nul am In n r .. t .. f. . . . . t Harding. More sccretely they sent the telegram to Will Has who they knew was at Marion The telegram was signed on behalf of the group by Herbert Her-bert lluuvcr, diid Jacob tiould Schur-I man, president of Cornell university. The telegram was a long one, and, as I say. expressed apprehension lest Harding Har-ding might yield to pressure from Borah Bo-rah and Johnson and depart from his ugust 28 speech. Will Hays got the telegram at Marion Ma-rion and showed it to Senator Harding Hard-ing Thereupon Senator Harding him-Mlf him-Mlf sent the following reply to M tsars Hooer and Schurman. (I quote the following telegram from memory, but I am sure that these were the words) HARDING'S RK1L.V. "There has been no change, there will be no change. Nothing has been said, nothing will be said in conflict with ni August 28 speech I hope you will see my speech to be delivered at Des Moines October 7 " In suggesting that they should look up his Des Moines 6pecch. Senator Harding had in mind the fact that there was an advance copy of this speech at the New York headquarters for Schurman and others to look at. available for Mr. Hoover and Ba. Thev did look at It. read It minutely and expressed due satisfaction with it Being reassured by it, they went ahead with their plans In addition to this group one of the most prominent of the pro-leaguo Ro-i publicans in New York read the advance ad-vance copy of tho Des Moines speech .Hid expressed enthusiasm for it saying "That's exactly what we need, that's a real pro-league speech." When most of the newsapers and probably the bulk of the public took the lew that tho Des Molncn speech was a change from the August 28 speech, certainly no one was more surprised sur-prised than Senator Harding himself He supposed he had reaffirmed his ugust 2s .-peech What then was thei cause of the widespread assumption that he had changed his position'' WRONG IMPRESSION One cause lay In the fact that certain cer-tain strong expressions of his attitude' on negative side of the question occurred oc-curred In the early part of his Dos Moines speech whllo his expressions on the afflrmatlvo side occurred In the latter part of tho 6peech. Bu this alone would not have accounted for this interpretation if it had not been for the fact that for a wook or ten days preceding the newspapers had been full of vague stories of a rift between Harding on the one hand and Senators Borah and Johnson and tho others Tho theory was Widely held that Senator Harding had a motive for ehanging his position and that, thai motive was pres.surc put upon him by Senators Borah and Johnson For fully fr ui weeks the Urgor part of the campaign cam-paign discussion was based upon this assumption. It was said that Senators Borah and Johnson had "blackmailed" Mr. Harding Into adopting their position, posi-tion, anothor word requeutly used in the terminology of the campaign to ex-pro;,.M ex-pro;,.M what was alleged to have happened hap-pened was blackjacked." But facts as a basis for this assumption assump-tion there were literally nono. It began be-gan with -stories In the newspapers to' the effect that Senator Borah had1 quarreled with Hardin nnd with the Republican national committee and was not going to make any more cam palgn speeches This expanded Into stories to tho effoct that Senator John-eon John-eon of California was going to do the same, that ho and Senator Borah had mado common cause In all this the clement of truth was this: Senator Borah upon returning from aspjBj one of his speech-making trips called up the speakers bureau of the Republican Re-publican national committee in New York by telephono and asked about B matter which was wholly a mere clerical cleri-cal detail of the relations between him and the national committee The reply re-ply was made that this detail was not In the hands of the New York headquarters head-quarters but was In the hands of the Chicago headquarters Thereupon Senator Borah said something to tho effect that it was of no consequence anyhow His reply seemed to express some Irritation and out of this episode K-rew tho enormous legend that un doubtedly had considerable effect on the course of the campaign. It would be of little use to consume space hero with restatement of Senator Sena-tor Harding's position on tho league That position on the league is contained contain-ed both In the August 23 speech and In the October 7 speech at Des Moines It Is true that there la an inherent difficulty dif-ficulty in making Senator Harding's position clear and keeping it clear. This difficulty lies In the fact that his position necessarily consists of two parts. One affirmative and ono negative. nega-tive. He is against entering the present pres-ent league which Includes article X And he is not only In favor of entering but will take the InitlatUo toward entering en-tering an association of nations Call it by any name you wish, which docs not Include article X. and is based upon the prlnclplo of an International court |