Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1919-10-03
BELIEVES IN The
LEAGUE COVENANT
Attorney John Foster Defends Peace
Treaty as Presented to United
States Senate by Wilson.

The League of Nations question has
been batted about from one end of the
earth to the other and so thoroughly
discussed in print that it seems al
most useless to say any thing more
about it, but since the question has
been touched on locally in a previous
issue of The Record and since, too,
there are always some people who
read the local paper but who do not
take outside papers, and to satisfy
my own conscience in the matter,
make this brief statement.
first intended to publish the sub
stance of the League covenant, but
this would require considerable space
and besides, the Tribune has come to
my rescue in the matter by publish
ing the full text, so l will treat only
the effect of the league covenant.
To me, the unsatisfactory side of
the League covenant is that it leaves
the Council and Assembly as merely
international arbitrators, sort of
world debating societies, with no pow
er to do more than recommend. IL
war breaks out, the Council recon-
mends what armament each member
of the league shall contribute to
squelch it; it recommends what max
imum armament shall be carried in
times of peace by the various nations;
it recommends what steps shall be
taken to curtail the manufacture of
munitions by private concerns; it rec
ommends terms of settlement Of dis
putes between nations; it recomemnds
methods of preventing the spread of
disease, the prevention of the traffic
in women and children, etc. But we
couldn't hope for a more powerful
league in its inception. The league
covenant provides the proper method
Of procedure; as time goes on and we
see how the matter works out, we
can give the Council and Assembly
power to enforce their decisions.
am not afraid of an abuse of power
by such an organization with all its
doings threshed out in the open. You
can tie up liar or a thief with the
most binding paper mat the human
mind can think of and you will lose,
even if it is nothing more than a Gig
arctic which he buns from you; but
liars and thieves are not the class of
men that will be sent to Geneva. The
value of any organization of men lies
in the character of the men them
selves. Who can imagine the repre-
sentatives of the world sitting at &C.
neva, in open session, with knowledge
that all their doings will be scattered
broadcast over the earth, and pulling
off a stunt such as Germany and Aus
tria attempted to carry out. Can you
imagine nation making any sort Of
a proposition which the world would
condemn. The only paper of any
consequence which the league would
have under the present form of the
covenant is in the public sentiment
which it can create, and this is not a
dangerous power.
The criticism which has been so
thoroughly INDUCED in, to the effect
that we will be dragged into every
war of the earth, that we will have
only one vote to Great Britain's five
and that we will be forced to do things
which we have no sympathy with, is
only myth. Great Britain has but
one vote in the Council and we have
one; the Assembly has no power as
it now stands so it matters little how
many men are in it. No decision OF
the Council is binding unless it Ii
unanimous, so how can we be bounc
without our consent. We may posi-
bly, be dragged into wars under the
league, but what wars in recent years
have occurred in which we haven
been dragged? | think it will be con
ceded by every one of us that from
now on no war can take place be
tween any two great nations without
our being mixed in it, whether we are
in league or not The wars between
petty nations will not occur, for the
simple reason that the will of thu
League will be forced upon them, re
gardless of what the outcome of thu
war might be; so there would be ne
incentive whatever for the parties t.
war. We have seen already wha
terms of settlement the Japs had Il
accept in the Russo-Japanese War
in spite of the outcome of that war
What real material good, then, cal
be accomplished by the League o
Nations? In the first place ever,
matter of dispute between nations
which might lead to war, must be sub
mitted to the League for arbitration
or to the international court create'
by the League covenant. This alon
would insure us against having
bomb dropped on our unsuspectin