The sun., 1919-03-09
The Treaty Of Peace Now; Then
the World Covenant.

- vital DLlluill anu IduCt, as tilc
cables now indicate, want a peace
treaty first and at once, that thing
will be done. If they want the League
OF Nations to wait its turn for de-
1iberate consideration and careful
work, 1t will wait.
What Great Britain and France
want and can agree upon in this mat
ter'will come to pass, Mr.. WILSON at
home, on the high seas, or in Paris;
for these two nations have on the
other hemisphere bigger interest at
stake than all the rest of the dele
gates put together. Their power is
equal to the fulfilment Of their will
~ to their own national business
In Europe, in Africa, and, for the mat
ter Of that. with an amiable Japan
eoncurring, in Asia too.
A programme like that, at the best
or at the worst, could but leave the
cardinal and virtually the all Of
American interest safe and sound at
home. They would be attending to
their own business; we should be at
tending to ours. For the present there
would be nothing in such action to
cause any normal. balanced, judicious
American SILVER or a tear.
Meanwhile. for the future, all the
peoples Of the earth-all the nations
and all the tribes-could negotiate
the right kind Of league or alliance
or tribunal or something to prevent
needless war and to damn those who.
might plot or undertake wanton war.
All this is possible, because 1t is
rational and practical. Mankind is
rapidly steadying itself from the
brain-whirl which, not unnaturally at
the sudden stop Of four years and
more of wholesale international butch
cry, spun the emotional and hysterical
of their heads, not for the first time
in history, nor yet for the thousandth
time. Wherefore. peace first, with
the prevention of war later in its
proper order, is not merely possible;
It is probable. 1t need not be remote;
It can be immediate.
There never was an ounce OF honest
force, there never was n ray of COM
mon sense, in the post bellum doc
trine, shouted from the housetops by
q chorus of excited sentimentalists,
that 1t was hopeless to make n treaty
of peace without League of Nations
- enforce it.
Did the vision Of League Of Ma
tions make the Central Powers stop
fighting, or was it bayonets? Did the
threat of outlawry make them sign
the armistice. or was 1t the menace
of more shrapnel? Did the Fourteen
Points make them surrender their
guns and ammunition, yield their
fortresses, give over their battleships
and submarines, deliver their railway
rolling stock, restore their prisoners
and return their stolen gold, or was
it the power of arms?
Well, If when the Central Powers
still possessed their legions and fleets,
fheir foriressrl--Snd bastienW their
guns and ammunition, they could be
compelled TO make peace could they,
stripped of all war tools, war equip
ment, war power, not be compelled to
keep that peace? Could not the Cen
trail Powers, naked, be held to their
contract by virtually single one. of
fhe great Allies, equipped in complete
fighting armor?
No one will maintain that 1t would
be desirable or wholesome to have
armed Allies thus standing grim guard
for generations over the bare bodies
of the whipped and covering Central
Powers to enforce the treaty contract
to the last injunction against even the
drilling OF human being, the forging
of gun, or the stamping of brass
hutton. But when the Allies have
: given heroically the lives of millions
of their nOblest men throughout four
years and more to compel the Cen
trail Powers to crawl on their knees
and beg for peace, who shall gainsay
that then, when peace was Won, the
treaty was signed and nations were
again free to resume their normal
ways, the Allies could we'll and hon
.!crably employ few hundred thou
sand men for brief months to keep
the peace, while statesmen, not vision
saries; thinkers, not spouters; work
& ers, not evangelists. planned with
foresight, builded with care. but
dressed with both right and might a