The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1919-03-05
THE PRESIDENT
SAILS FOR FRANCE:
To Be Gone Until the ftdc5
Treaty is Signed.
SPEAKS IN NEW YORK
Mr.. Wilson and Mr.. Taft at Great
Mass Meeting, Urged Establish
ment of a League of Nations.

y
On the transport George Washington
| to be gone until the treaty OF peace
| has been signed.
The president and Mrs. Wilson
| boarded the lrAr:s.t'rt at mldiiiSht'
| after delivering ;tn address al the
| Metropolitan Opera House, nrS-i::s ;h'
establishment of league of nations
Former President Taft, speaking
| from the same platform, also ou lined
| his reasons for believing that league
| should be formed to prevent futurr
wars.
Governor Smith, of New York, pre-,
! sided at the meeting, and Introduced
| the president and Mr.. Taft.
President Wilson arrived at the
opera house at SO o'clock, accom-
panied by Mrs Wilson. The president
Went 10 cloak room, where he met
MI Taft. Mrs. Wilson was escorted
| to box in the first balcony.
Seats were provided in the front
row on the platform for President
Wilson. Mr.. Taft, Governor Smith,
Frank l.. Polk. acting secretary of
state: Abram l. Elkus, former am
| bassador to Turkey; Cleveland H.
Dodge and Alfred E. Marling, presi-
dent. of the New York chamber of
commerce.
A military tinge was given the meet
| ing by the presence on the pla form
of Major Generals David c. Shanks
and Thomas Barry and their Salts
and Vice Admiral Albert E. Gleaves
and Rear Admiral Nathaniel r. Usher
and their staffs. Others on the plat
form included Joseph z. Tumulty, sec
| rotary to the president; former Gov
ernor Charles S. Whitman, former
| Ambassador Henry Morgenthau and
other distinguished men.
Mr.. Wilson in his speech said:
"My fellow-citizens, 1 accept the in
| tfmation of the air just played. l will
not come back till it's over, over
there And yet l pray God in the in
terest Of peace and of the world, that
that may be soon.
"The first thing that l am going to
tell the people on the other side of
the water, is that an overwhelming
ma jority Of the American people is in
favor OF the league of nations.
know that that is true, 1 have had
unmstakable limitations Of it from
all parts of the country, and the voice
rings true in every case. l count my
self fortunate to speak here under the
usual circumstances of this evening.
am happy to associate myself with
Mr.. Taft in this cause. He has dis
played an elevation of view and Il de-
votion to public duty, which is be-
yond praise.
"And I am the more happy because
this means that this is not a party
issue No party has the right to APP
propriate this issue, and no party will,
In the long rim. dare oppose it.
ave have listened to SO clear and
the main features Of the proposed
covenant of the league of nations,
that it is perhaps not necessary for
me to discuss in any particular way
the contents of the document. | will
seek rather to give you its setting. l
do not know when have been more
impressed than by the conferences Of
the commission set up by the
conference Of peace to draw up Il
covenant for the league of nations
The representatives of fourteen ma
tons sat around that bOard-not young
men, not men inexperienced in the af-
fairs of their own countries, not men
fr,n ,or.in IN hn ,f t1n
world, and the inspiring influence of
every meeting was the concurrence of
purpose on the part of all those men
to come to an agreement and an ef
fective working agreement with re-
gard to this league of the civilized
world
There was conviction in the
whole impulse, there was conviction
of more than one sort, there was the
conviction that this thing ought to be
done, and there was also the cOnvic-
| ton that not man there would ven
| ture TO go home and say that he had
not tried to do it.
Mr.. Taft has set the picture for
you of what a failure of this great
purpose would mean. We have been
hearing for all these weary months
that this agency of war has lasted
because Of the sinister purpose of the
central empires, and we have made
maps of the course that they meant
their cOnquests TO take. Where did
the lines of that map lie, of that CEN
| trail line that we used to call from
| Bremen to Bagdad?
''They lay through these very re-
gions to which Mr.. Taft has called
yonr attention, but they lay through
the United Empire. through the Aus
| tTo-T'ungarian empire, whose integrity
which Germany was bound to respect
her ally, In the path of that line of
conquest, the Turkish empire, whose
interests she professed to make her
own. lay in the direct path that she
intended TO tread.
And now what has happened? The
Austro- Hungarian ei-:p-r re ii;.s gone IL
pieces and the Turkish empire has
disappeared, and the nations that eff
fected that great result-for it was
result Of liberation-and now reSpOn-
sible as the trustees Of the assets of
those great nations. You not only
would have weak nations lying in
this path, but you would have nations
in which that old poisonous seed of
intrigue could be planted with the
certainty that the crop would be
abundant, and one Of the things that
the league of nations is intended to
watch is the course Of intrigue. In
trigue cannot stand publicity. and il
The Strong Withstand The Winter