Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-03-22
[From the New York SUM


n n astonishing ignorance or
| ~ avoidance of the facts appears
in discussion by the New
! York World of the talk in Paris
| about amendments to the Wilson
| covenant:
Where Senator Lodge. Senator
Knox and other opponents of the
present draft of the league conStitu-
! ton have laid themselves open to
! just censure is not in their insist
| ence upon amendment but in their
stubborn refusal to suggest changes
| and notifications. The Lodge reso-
| luton declared against the consti-
| tuition of the League of Nations in
| the form now proposed to the Peace
| Conference but not one of the Sem
! ators signing it has had the good
| faith to indicate the amendments
! that he deems necessary"
! Senator Knox was one of the sign
ers of the pledge to oppose the Will
| son draft of the league constitution
in it's present form, and if the World
| had indulged in the intellectual treat
of reading the speech which Mr..
Knox delivered in the Senate on
March l it would not have said in
honesty the remarkable words we
| have quoted.
OF course the most important
! feature of the Wilson covenant is
| the evils that it contains. A second
| airy yet very important consideration
| is the things that may be inserted in
| the document after the evil things
! have been torn out. Senator Knox
devoted his address first to the perils
of the covenant: the looseness and
| unintelligibility of it's wording; the
absence of details of procedure such
| as are contained, for instance, in our
own Constitution; the prospect of
| the covenants abrogating our treat
| les; its power to force the United
| States into wars not affecting or con-
| cerning us, the covenant making 1t
| certain that every future war should
| be a world war; its withdrawal from
| Congress of the constitutional power
| to declare war; its power to send our
! soldiers to any part of the earth; its
| power to decide how much America
must contribute, in lives and treas
| ure, to the leagues purposes; its
| sterilization of the Monroe Doctrine
these are the principal objections
which Americans make to the pres
ent draft of the covenant, and Sen
| ator Knox voiced them.
If Senator Knox had stopped with
/ that his speech would still be a most
valuable contribution to the cause OF
| America; but, not content with de-
| structive criticism of the bad feat
ures of the covenant. he went on to
make the constructive suggestions
| which we must assume the World
| cannot have read. AS the prime ne
cessity of any International agree
ment reached at Paris is the preven-
ton of future wars, Senator Knox
| suggested three methods, two OF
| which are available for considera-
ton in framing league constitution
that would be acceptable to Ameri-
| cans. The first of these was this:
One way is to provide for the
compulsory arbitration of all
disputes under some such plan
as that provided for in the In
ternational Prize Court, or the
unratified American-British and
| American French arbitration
| treaties of 1911, or the Olney-
Pauncefote Treaty of 1897, or
a union of the best in all of
them"
In his comment on this first plar
I Senator Knox said that he could re.
call no case between great powers
| in which an award made has not
either been carried out as given OF
has not let to an adjustment mu-
tually satisfactory to both parties u