The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-07-12
OUR PLACE AMONG NATIONS
Too Important to Be Endangered BY
Wrangling at Home.

loo important TO be Endangered BY
Wrangling at Home
The president returns, we are glad to
believe, not to controversy but for eoun
sell The place he has filled is too high,
the work he has done is too great and
important to make it either seemly or
safe that strife should continue over his
achievements. We have come to place
Of great influence and responsibility
among the very foremost of the group
of nations that will in future so largely
guide the course of events all over the
world. We must hold that place and
deserve the respect and confidence to
which it entities us, by being Of one
mind about its duties. We cannot hold
it If the nation is rent and torn by the
wrangling Of parties and disturbed by
personal and political dissension. We
must feel, think, and act as a nation.
II is most gratifying, therefore, to
learn that the president will at once hold
conference with the Senate committee
on foreign relations In this, we think,
he repairs an earlier error He was not
bound by constitutional precept or by
precedent to consult with the Senate
tiatioDs, or at all until the treaty was
signed But had he done so it would
have been an act of manifest wisdom,
for in that way he might have spared
himself much embarrassment, he might
have spared the country great part, if
not ALL of the division of counsel which
has arisen over the treaty and the league
covenant.
Acting as Prime Minister.
In Washington Mr., Wilson is president
of the United States At Paris and
Versailles he was practically our prime
minister. 1t is the first duty of prime
minister to see to it that his ma jority
is secure. 1t made no vital difference to
Mr.. Wilson as president that he lost his
majority in the Senate at the NOvem
Der elections; it made a great deal of
difference in the performance of his min
isterial duties. He would have been well
advised had he taken into conference and
into his confidence some of the leading
members of the Senate, Republican and
Democratic, before his first. departure for,
Paris 1t would have been well to re-
new that interchange of views with them
from time to time as the negotiations
proceeded. By that course misunder-
standings would have been cleared away,
opposition overcome, much better rela-
tions established 1t is never too late to
mend, and it is permitted us to hope that
the meeting with the members of the
Senate committee, somewhat belated,
may bring about good understanding
and go far TO remove causes of differ
ences between him and the leaders of
the opposition party.
Can Clear Misconceptions.
1t is devoutly to be hoped that they
may now be removed for we do not wish
to appear to the foreign nations to which
we are attached by such close ties as q
people who care more about their home
politics than about their standing before
the world and the esteem in which we
are held by other peoples. The president
will be able to impart to the senators
his own clear and thorough understand
ing of the work of the peace conference.
With his gift of statement and exposi-
tion he will be able to clear away many
serious misconceptions. The Republican
senators who now control the fate of the
treaty should and will meet the presi-
dent az reasonable men, as Americans re
solved that this nation shall lose nothing
of the influence and power for good in
the affairs of the world which it now
possesses. II they feel that they have
gone too far in their opposition to the
treaty and the covenant, so far that they
have not carried the country with them,
it may be that the president himself win
feel that the country has not approved
his seeming propensity for grave de
csions in Paris with too little attention
TO the state of mind in Washington.
They can meet by mutual yielding, yield
ing rather in method than in essentials.
II is political and international situa
ton Of a good deal OF gravity, it de-
mands that the men concerned in it
should rise above all minor things and
proceed by union of desire and effort to
the accomplishment of the far greater
things depending upon them.
Duty to Preserve Peace
We think that this is the feeling which
inspired the presidents brief address at
Carnegie hall. He spoke the Judgment
of the great body of Americans when he
said: 1T is just peace, and peace
which if it can be preserved, will save
the world from unnecessary bloodshed.
We believe he also spoke for his fellow
citizens when he added: "And now the
great task is to preserve it," The proper
performance of that task is so important
to the nation and the individual that it
takes precedence of any personal ambi
ton or private grievance.
Controversy over the presidents work