The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1919-06-06
AN ILLUMINATING sPEEcH

que of nations meeting and over
coming all objections made thereto,
and making clear that without its
ratification the war was fought in
vain, is the speech made by Hon. j.
II. Robinson, the distinguished sena-
tor fran Arkansas in the senate OF
the United States, May IT. 1919.
It wipes away~all the cobwebs, all
the hair-splitting technicalities, all
the imaginary scare-crows with which
it's DIRECTORS have sought to surround
it, and, shows their motives in SO do
ing: and in the matter of its ratifica-
ton, makes clear the solemn obliga-
tions of our government.
The speech shows Senator Lodge S
want of candor in sending out a teie-
gram before the reconvening Of con-
gress urging republican members of
the senate to remain silent On The
subject of the revised draft of the
league of nations until party eau
Gus could be held and then claiming
that in so doing it was impartial and
non-partisan
He also pointed out Senator
Lodges glaring inconsistency by re-
producing and comparing his printed
statements of only short time ago
with his present attitude.
Only a little while before, speak
ing intensely and periodically in IA
sor OLA league of nations along vita
other Language just as strong or
stronger, the Massachusetts states
man said:
This league certainly has the
highest of all aims for the benefit of
humanity, and because the pathway
is sown with difficulties is no reason
that we should turn from it. 1t is
the vision of perhaps impossible
perfection that has led humanity
across the centuries. II our aspira-
tons are for that which is great and
beautiful and good and beneficent to
humanity, even when we do not
achieve our end, even if the results
are little, we can at least remember
Arnold's lines:
charge then, and be dumb;
Let the victors, when they come,
When the forts of folly fall,
Find your body at the wall"
But at the critical hour, when pa,
triotism called to him loudly, dis
tinctly and clearly, purely for parti-
san purposes, he ignominiously fed,
and his body was found not against
the wall but far from it.
The climax of his speech, if any
one pointed and convincing para
graph is more climatic than anoth,
er, was his showing the absurdity of
Senator Reeds attempt to intimidate
southern senator's by injecting the
race question into the discussion.
Heretofore the Missouri senator
has attempted to make the country
believe that if the league of nations
is ratified it would make Great Brit
ain potential enough to dominate the
trade, traffic and policies of the
world, now he seeks to make the !
country believe that if the league of |
nations is adopted it will place the
governing policy of the world in the
hands of other than the white race /
He even puts Cuba down as be-
longing to the dark races with only
thirty-three per cent Of her popula,
ton other than white.
With the same parity of reasoning
he could have included Mississippi
and some of the other southern
states.
He goes long way out Of the path
Of reasoning to manufacture scare
crow with which to brighten and in
timidate his southern colleagues but
in so doing he makes a very grave
reflection upon their intelligence.
Senator Robinson very effectively !
not only the fallacy but the
of the reasoning of the !
Missourian who for ever so long al
time has been busiIy throwing obsta- !
cles in the pathway of the president
and his administration.
But the part of the speech that we
enjoyed most was his unmasking the
senator from the state of Washing
ton, Mr. Poindexter, and showing the
motive and baselessness of his at
tack on the president in a speech de-
livered by him at Cambridge, Mass.
in the early part of May
That speech was one of studied de,
liberation. 1t had been thought out