The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-05-08

The Proposed Treaty OF . Peace OF
victory-why the Senate
Should Amend 1t.
The dramatic scene at Versailles
yesterday marked the completion Of
the first chapter OF the work of the
Peace Conference. The long text Of
the official summary of the much
longer document of humiliation and
retribution which events under the
control Of Divine justice, with human
valor and constancy as the immediate
agents, have prepared for the chief
offender in an unparalleled crime Of
war is published to the world. The
minds of most men will seize first Of
all upon the contrast with another
spectacle arranged by victorious Ger
many for beaten and PROSTATE France
almost half a century ago in that
same splendid domain of a King who
was the State. With what superla-
tive artistry does Destiny's moving
finger shape its sequels and write its
revenges! However, there are con-
siderations more practical than that
on which Imagination would like to
linger; more insistent for the atten-
ton Of American citizens who recog-
nize no ruler who is himself the State.
Almost the last words of President
WILSON to his fellow countrymen be-
fore his second departure on the
George Washington conveyed threat
to the treaty making authority in the
Senate chamber at Washington. 1t
is important to keep this threat in
memory, for it was an unrestrasned
declaration Of a deliberate attempt.
"When that treaty comes back" said
the President in the Metropolitan
Opera House, gentlemen on this side
will find the covenant not only in it.
but so many threads of the treaty
tied to it that you cannot dissect the
covenant from the treaty without de-
stroying the whole vital structure.
The structure of peace will not be
vital without the League of Nations,
and no man is going to bring back a
cadaver with him."
We are now able for the first time
to count the number of his rivets, to
measure their strength, and to see
how far he has succeeded, after nine
weeks of additional effort, in making
good his threat or boast of March 4,
1919. He has done wonders mean
while In that way. He has appar-
emily devoted his mental adroitness
far more to this defiantly avowed pur-
pose of confusion and complication
than to preserving and applying the
principles of his Fourteen Points. The
personally conceived and promulgated
code of the Fourteen Points, and not
the covenant or the treaty, is the ca
daver he sends back.
The President has so contrived that
the covenant cannot be severed in
block from the rest Of the treaty and
considered, as it ought to be cOnsld-
cred by the American Congress, on its
merits as q separate and portentous
proposal, without somewhat labori-
Gus dissection of many of the other
sections Of the treaty. The covenant
turns up in dozens Of places with re-
gard to matters with which this Gov.
eminent has no proper concern. We
shall not attempt catalogue of the
rivets he has driven or the knots he
has tied in order to embarrass the
Senate and to increase the difficulty
Of ratifying that which should be
ratified and rejecting that which for
Americas interests should manifestly
be amended or rejected. A single Il.
lustration of his method of intertwin.
Ing, his process of Interviewing, will
do us we'll MS twenty.
Contemplate, as an example, the
case of the Saar basin provisions
which concern the American Govern