The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1919-10-25
THAT ARMENIAN MANDATORY

There were frequent limitations from Washington that
President Wilson, before his illness, intended to place the bur-
den of the Armenian mandatory on congress. 1t was a burden
that he did not want to assume. One of his friends went SO far
as TO say that the time had come when congress must ido its
share of burden bearing, the administration cannot forever do
ii all and bear it all.
That is strange talk, for congress has not been permitted
to even know what was being done for the nation and in the
name of the nation by the president. Congress has, been
spurned rather than invited to do its share,
But the Armenian mandatory is no mere formal affair,
according to these advices. At the least'it would take 10000
American ~doughboys and many military men believe it will
take a great many more, for they will be in a country as
unsettled as Mexico itself, where rowing bands harrass and
make trouble over night. One military man says that it will
be much safer to send 100000 men to that turbulent scene. And
rs for money, a billion dollars will go %glimmering in less than
no time if the thing is properly financed, as it must be.
Such being the size of the job we can see that the presi-
dent would hesitate to give the orders for it to be carried out.
To make it effective congress will not only have to be in the
plot but it will have to declare virtual war on Turkey and on
numerous bands of rowing Mohammedan fanatics. And where
are the ~doughboys to come from. To fill up the little army left
in Europe the country has been ransacked for men and every
sort of appeal has been made. But the men have not offered
themselves in the hundreds of thousands. 1t is not believed
that 100000 or even 10000 men can be obtained for the
Armenian service without a draft and how are you going to
put a draft through to make men go to a foreign land to fight
and to die? Where is the political party in congress that will
dare to enact such a law and who is the president who will
enforce such a law?
We are afraid that the whole proposition IS a tough one
and doomed to failure. We do not believe that congress will
ever consent to assume in the name of the people such an
undertaking. It is not going to make America the goat of the
European conspirators who have gobbled up all the lucrative
regions for their manufactures and which are trying to palm OIL
on their Uncle Sam the, undesirable and the expensive instead
of profitable ones. England Is willing to look after ,Mesopo-
iamia with its rich lands. but it wants the United States to
take sterile Armenia. lfiArmenia must be policed the United
States should not do it alone. but it should do it conjoiatly
with the other powers-it would be worse than an imposition
to force such a problem upon us and when we are once in
there we will never be able to withdraw without being accused
of desertion of duty. Let congress not be a fool in this matter
and put the United States in fora lifelong If not eternal JOB.
Let the allied nations police Armenia, not the United States
alone. We are not the goat of the world even If we are
regarded as the worlds easy mark" in philanthrophy