Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-11-23
JUSTICE. NOT BARTER,
MUST DICTATE TERMS
The Old Delusion of the War.Breeding Bal.
ance.of.Power Theory Faces Its
Doom at Last

| power" however, here is a delusion
which for four centuries has plunged
Europe in blood and at the height of its
full sway has dragged in other sup
posedly more fortunate portions of the
| globe. One hundred odd years ago, when
the Napoleonic power was overthrown,
a precious opportunity arose to destroy
that sinister concept.
The chance is at hand again. Presi-
dent Wilson is said fully to realize it
and to be arming himself to crush that
pernicious creed at the momentous con-
ferences which aim to guarantee peace
to stricken humanity. Similar senti-
ments are reported to inspire leading
figures of other nations. Straightfor-
ward action on this basis will quickly
dispel the mists which still enshroud the
project of a league of nations founded on
the principles of truth and justice.
Any compromise with the hoary snare,
however, will be fatal. Half measures
sow the seeds of confusion and the
harvest, as history tragically attests, is
then the rise of cynical bully nations,
which by contrast make even a seesaw
civilization seem desirable.
With this particular variety of short
sighted stiffness European annals are
sickeningly stained. The most pitiful
example is dated a century ago. The
"intolerable thing" Of it's day, Bonaparte-
ism in its final blind form was ami
hilated. The congress which sat in
Vienna in 1914 following the battle of
the nations at Leipsic had the sane re-
making of Europe in its power. The
trust was shamefully abused.
That consuming chimera, "balance of
power" stampeded the sessions. No
ethical sincerity informed the frantic
efforts of all parties, great and small, to
establish an equilibrium. Utterly selfish
claims were subjected to the most intri-
cate process of cancellation and adjust
ment. Heartless bartering in the main
oblivious to genuinely national and racial
considerations, insufficiently supported
by wealth or potentially in arms, ruled
the convention.
Open trading was even counter
balanced with secret deals, to one of
which Great Britain and Austria, victors,
actually admitted fallen France in an
attempt to forestall certain foreshadowed
territorial aggressions by Russia and
Prussia.
Napoleon'E dramatic return from Elba
nullifed some of these intrigues. The
Allies were again united in a common
danger, but after Waterloo the huckster-
ing was renewed, and in guise of ideal
ism, which temporarily obscured the evil
dences of fallacy.
1t is productive indeed of heart
sinkings to read the alleged aims of the
reconstructionists who signed a second
treaty in Paris on November 20, 1915.
The high contracting powers of the
"Grand Alliance" as this pretentious Or
ganization came to be called, pledged
themselves "to renew at fixed intervals
meetings consecrated to great common
objects and to the determination of such
measures as at each of these epochs shall
be judged most salutary for the pros
perity of the nations and for the main
tenance of the peace of Europe"
Seemingly, the spirit of the League of
Nations to which war-weary mankind
now passionately looks forward is here
expressed. Actually, however, the delu-
sve "balance of power" virus was still at
work. Within eight years the tricky see
saw, weighted with diverse brands of
injustice, had been subjected to some
extremely violent fitting.
The elmer circle" of Prussian, Aus
trian and Russian monarchs, banded to-
gether in the oppressive and intolerant
Holy Alliance, had offended Britain with
designs for the restoration to Spain of
the liberty-loving South American COL
onies and had prompted the promulga-
tion of the Monroe Doctrine from the
United States. France had betrayed her
inherent, but then submerged, republi-
canism by dispatching an army to Spain
in order to free a despotic king from
constitutional checks, but her partner
ship with oppression was approaching an
end, for 1880 saw the revolution of July
and the fight of her last Bourbon mon
arch. The Grand Alliance, with all its
iniquitous and artificial oscillations, had
collapsed.
| Throughout the remainder of the CEN
tury and up until the Kaiser's challenge
in 1914 no closely cooperative League of
Nations was achieved. European politics
took the insubstantial form of beautiful
sentiments at The Hague of recent years
and throughout the whole period of the
balance-of-power machinery. OF course,
readjustments were constant, and wher-
ever the shifting of the precautionary
weights was not observed with the
utmost nicely wars usually broke out.