The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1919-07-07
PL.ATITUDES

There is not a more eloquent speaker in the senate than lin
Reed. of Missouri. He possesses the charm OF rhetoric, the
snarkle of personality and his matchless satire cuts like a rapier
His epigrams are electric. His oratory is the kind one reVelS H.
even when he is tearing into the listeners t'rm and liked OPINION
Recently Senator Reed and Senator Hiram Johnson, OF Cai-
fornia, delivered mastery addresses in Carnegie hal; New YORK
in opposition to the league Of nations. We are told that only
one scene ever equaled it, and that was when theodore foose-
welt stepped back into the arena OF politics.
Anyone who has heard Reed is prepared to accept the
description. He makes the catchiest phrases OF any man in pub,
lie life. But outside the stutfy auditorium, when the cool
breczes, waited up the Hudson from the sea, struck the audience
full in the face, what must it have thought OF those sparkling,
scintllating shots that fairly stood it on its feet in enthusiastic
applause? For here are some OF the things he said that caused
his audience to shake the rafters:
Il am not a believer in government by sanctitcat'on"
Nations cannot be transformed into saints by the mere act
of signing a paper
duced will not be accomplished by a league OF nations
IL am not a believer in the new magic
1T is as foolish to declare that the nations Of the world can
suddenly be made perfectly good as it is to assert that they are
you cannot add together the barbarism OF Turkey, the
brutality of Bulgaria, the ignorance OF Liberia, the cruelty OF
Germany, the race ~prejudices of Europe and Asia, the ambitions
of monarchs and the insanity Of anarchists and Boshevists and
produce a sum total of brotherly love.
II refuse to enter into a partnership where America must
assume a major portion Of the liabilities and collect none OF the
dividends"
The time has come for plain speech. The American people
have a right to know the plain facts. The man or paper who
willingly misleads the American people in thus great crisis OF
~ country's fate is the basest OF criminals"
We find not the slightest difficulty in subscribing to the
views of the senior senator from Missouri, as set forth IN the
principal p~lattudes expressed at the great meeting.
But he might have gone farther, and with more truth and
optimism, have said:
"A british man knoweth not; neither doth a TOOL under
stand this.
when the wicked spring as the grass, and when all the
II workers of iniquity do flourish, it is that they shall be destroyed
forever.
"But thou, Lord, art most high for evernore.
For 10, thine enemies, o Lord, for 10, thine enemies shall
perish: all the workers of innquity shall be scattered.
"The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree; he shall
grow like a cedar in Lebanon
Strange and unfamiliar language like this would have addeC
something to the senator's reputation for originality and inspired
his audience with optimism, and at the same time relieved hin
of the responsibility of turning it out with no. assurance tina
we might not again be plunged into another bloody war becaus,
the great nations neglected to take steps to check the first ma,
impulse to spring at one another.