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Show ll CONVENTION Sn'ssSd Only Alternative Is Fight, Regarded Re-garded as Hopeless, for Treaty Intact . BY H. N. RICKEY. N. E. A. Staff Correspondent. WASHINGTON, May 17. Those Democratic leaders who hoped to avoid a finish fight over the treaty and league of nations at the San Francisco convention have been disappointed. President Witeon's message to. the Democrats of Oregon in which he declared de-clared that the honor of the nation required re-quired that the party give unqualified Support to his treaty position ratification rati-fication without reservations makes the issue perfectly clear. The convention either must follow his lead and do his bidding in respect of the treaty or repudiate repudi-ate his leadership. There can he no compromise. The situation which the president's unyielding attitude has created is mosti embarrassing to those who will be charged with the responsibility of writing writ-ing the platform and nominating the candidate at San Francisco. What Wilson Asks Twenty-three Democratic senators voted with the majority Republican senators to attach the Lodge reservations reserva-tions to the treaty. The 23. included every northern Democratic senator but two. The president now Insists that the national convention brand these senators sena-tors as disloyal to the party. When it is considered that with few exceptions these senators are the leaders lead-ers in. Iheir respective states and will hav.e' great Influence in the convention, it Is difficult to overestimate the bitter bit-ter character of the struggle which the president has precipitated. Bryan, w'-o will control at least a strong minority in the convention, opposes op-poses the president's position. He lost no time accepting the president'!? challenge in a statement in which he characterized it as evidence of unsound un-sound judgment, duo to Mr. Wilson's lack of information. 1 here is no doubt that Bryan's position posi-tion is more nearly m harmony with the majority of the Democratic lead- ersmp in unci out ot congress man is the Wilson position. A No-Hope Platform. The plain truth is that there are not a. dozen Democrats of leadership class in tho country who believe that the party has the ghost of a chance to win in November on the issue of ratifying the treaty and league of nations' na-tions' without reservations. In private conversation, almost every Democrat in Washington, even those holding office under the president, presi-dent, admit this. One of those leading Democratic senators from a northorn state Ox-pressed Ox-pressed the situation today like this: "The president asks the party to follow fol-low him on a course which will lead to certain defeat. Our only possible chance of electing our ticket this year is to emphasize domestic issues. Yet to repudiate the president's leadership with the alternative of accepting the leadership of Bryan Is Uko jumping from the frying-pan into the fire. "Wo Democrats have been having a" lot of fun at the expense of the Republicans Re-publicans because of the muddle into which they, have dragged themselves in the primary fights. But the Republican Re-publican situation is a happy one coni' pared with ours." "Friendly Call" Proposed. The suggestion has been made that a committee of party leaders, made up of such men as Pomerene, Phelan, Pittman, Henderson, Walsh of Montana, Mon-tana, and others, call upon the president presi-dent and attempt to convince him that to persist in the course he has taken will wreck the party without forwarding forward-ing the Interests of the treaty. It is doubtful whether this will be done, however, as no one seriously believes that the president could be swerved from his course even if ho would receive such a committee. This may be said with certainty: The situation among the northern north-ern Democratic leaders Is pregnant preg-nant with greater possibilities of rebellion against the president's leadership than at any time during the eight years that he has ruled. If the president follows up his treaty demand by trying to force tho nomination nom-ination of a man of his own choice, such a man. for example, as Secretary of State Colby, the possibility of rebellion re-bellion would become a probability. nn . |