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Show 1 TAFT RIPS FOES OF LEA6UE0FNATI0NS 1 DECLARES "SMALL AMERICANS" OF SMALL VISION HAVE SENATE SEATS. Former President in Address at San Francisco Condemns. Senators Who Havr Opposed League of Nations Plan. San Francisco. Former President William H. Taft, addressing the closing clos-ing session Thursday night, February -0, of the Pacific coast congress of the League to Enforce Peace, replied to his critics and opponents of the plan for the establishment of a league of nations, and referred particularly to an open letter addressed to him by United States Senator William . B. Borah of Idaho, which questioned the efficiency of the Monroe doctrine in the event fhp Ipntmo r,r tv.itinnc nlan was adopted. "Senator Borah wants to know, Ir what he calls an open letter," said Mr Taft, "whether I would consent to a league of nations in which the Monroe doctrine is not recognized. I will answer him by saying that I would like to have the Monroe doctrine acknowledged ac-knowledged specifically by such a league, but if a recognition of Its principles prin-ciples is contained in the covenant for such a league I would not object to the form in which it is put. "Article X of the covenant drafted in Paris extends the Monroe doctrine to the entire world and gives It tne backing of the entire world.. Consequently Conse-quently it recognizes the Monroe doctrine, doc-trine, and I am in entire support of that covenant. ' Refers to "Wild Words." "What I would like to ask Senator Borah is this: If he insists on the specific acknowledgment of the Monroe Mon-roe doctrine in the covenant for the league of nations, and if such recognition recog-nition is given it in the covenant as finally agreed upon in Paris, will he vote for a treaty based upon the covenant coven-ant as finally amended? "The wild Words of Representative Fess and Senators Reed and 'Polndex-ter, 'Polndex-ter, shot out into the air ou the theory that the people of this country do not read or that they will accept their bald statements unquestionably, would be humorous if they were not the utterances utter-ances of such eminent and learned gentlemen." Characterizing as "small Americans" members of the United States senate who are opposing the covenant for a league of nations, Mr. Taft made an especial appeal t'o the women of the Pacific coast to bring their influence influ-ence to bear on the senate in behalf of ratification of the league. "Certain small Americans' on the floor of the United States senate profess to see dire danger and eventual disaster to the country if we enter into a league of nations," said Mr. Taft. "I do not use the term 'small Americans' Amer-icans' in an invidious sense, but simply - to imply that these gentlemen have a small view of America ; the provincial, provin-cial, selfish view that the highest duty of America is to preserve for our own peopl.e, beyond which we have no other responsibility toward the rest of the world." |
