Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-09-03
PLAIN SPEECH CAN WIN
WILSON'S LOST GROUND
The President on His Tour Should Rid
Himself of the Habit Of Retcence
Acquired at Paris

CAN Mr., Wilson reconquer America
- That he should consider it necessary
to make the attempt is a sure indication
of sort of change in the national tenn
per that he himself would be the first to
perceive.
A year ago the President would not
have had to tour the country. He owned
the world. 1t would have followed him
anywhere-in a straight line. He re-
claimed something priceless from a ruin
that seemed complete. Heard suddenly
in the heat and flame Of war, he reused
all sorts of people to new and magnifi-
cent resolves. Now he is going out to
be judged according to standards that
are largely of his own creation, to meet
Va challenge that he himself first put into
words, because he Jagged either through
sheer weariness or before insurmount-
able obstacles in the service of a great
cause.
Such is the fate of prophets and the
way of Providence.
If the people up and down the country
could explain in a sentence some of the
doubts that come unbidden when the
Presidents policies are considered they
might say that Mr.. Wilson created
much-and destroyed nothing. There is
a growing fear that the league of nations
is being built on shaky foundations and
that the old order of craftsmanship has
a new and gorgeous sanctuary in tenn
pie that was intended to celebrate its
end.
This isn't true, of course. But the de-
sign of the treaty isn't all that it ought
to be or what it may be. There are some
dangerous weaknesses in the general
foundation. The Shantung settlement
gives to Japan not only a part of China,
it gives to the Japanese the means they
would require for an industrial and mill
tary conquest of China. 1t gives the
japanese the resources necessary to an
aggressive policy in the Pacific. There
are other details of the treaty and the
league covenant which Mr.. Wilson has
never explicitly explained. His tour will
be eliminating test of his versatility.
The very breadth and 1ncusiveness of
the Presidents reasoning, his habit of
dealing with fundamentals that may be
discussed only in general terms, has often
kept him from that close community of
understanding with plain men which he
himself seems most to desire. At time
like this there ought to be plain speech.
The peace treaty and the scheme for a
league of nations touches human life
everywhere more closely than anything
else in the world. 1t is the one great
hope of civilization. 1t ought to be
made understandable, Mr.. Wilson can
still find the nation solidly behind him if
the habitual restraint of meticulous good
manners doesn't make it impossible for
him to put his whole case in simple terms
If there has been treason to the cause
of the league of nations it ought to be
exposed. If queer compromises were
found advisable we should know why.
There is enough courage and fortitude
still in the world to make all of the
Presidents hopes yet certain of realiza-
ton. The Paris conference was bit too
restrained and correct. What the world
needed was a robust hater, John the
Baptist with a tongue of fire, who feared
nothing-not even the judgments of his
tory. 1t still has use for such a man.
In his absence Mr.. Wilson has an oppor-
tunity to play the part as he didn't, or
couldn't, play it at Paris.
Sensible men will not expect revela-
tions of perfection either in statesmen
or in a new system of international rela-
tions, because perfection is not attainable
this side of heaven. Yet they do expect
the President to clear some of the fogs of
mystification that have been permitted to
rise out of Washington, to give them back
their full faith in him and to make more
definite answers to the Senate than he
has yet made.
Meanwhile it is idle to throw verbal
bricks at Congress as a whole. Mr..
Lodge is not the Senate, nor is Sherman,
nor Borah, nor Johnson, nor any other
man of the willful group.
The important element in the Senate,
which Mr. Wilson may easily win to his
side, is composed of about twenty-five
conservative-liberals on the Republican
side who have been keeping their peace
and doing some watchful waiting on their
own account. The men who do the most
talking do not greatly matter. And a
wrong headed minority is not by any
means bad thing to have around. 1t
keeps good men in training and on the
alert,
There are men of sort who would
oppose the Ten Commandments for the
satisfaction of making a fight or view
even the Beatitudes as an ominous de-
parture from precedent and a certain
cause of disaster. They harassed Wash
ington, Lincoln and Roosevelt. They
were present in the wilderness to scoff
at Moses, to plot and whisper and make
high signs and pu6aueries in the back