River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1919-10-02

democracy, as stable form of govern
| ment as we know it, is possible only
with highly educated populations and
| large force of men who are capable
! of government. Few of the men who
compose these governments have had
any actual experience at governing
and their populations are woefully IL
literate.
"They will require a generation of
actual national life in peace to de-
velop free education and skill in gov
| eminent.
unless these countries have a guild
Ing hand and referee in their Quarrels.
court of appeals for their wrongs,
this Europe will go back to chaos.
II there is such an institution, rep
resenting the public opinion of the
world, and able to exert it's authority,
they will grow into stability. We can
not turn back now.
There is another point which also
/ needs emphasis. World treaties hith-
ertO have always been based on the
theory of balance of power. Strong
er races have been set up to dominate
the weaker, partly with a view to
maintaining stability and to a greater
degree with view to maintaining oc-
equations and positions for the re-
|, dictionaries Of the world.
1.-THE balance of power is born OF
armies and navfes, aristocracies,
autocracies, and reactionaries general
, ly, who can find employment and
domination In these institutions, and
treaties founded on this basis have
established stability after each great
war for a shorter or longer time, but
never more than generation.
America came forward with a new
idea, and we insisted upon it's injec-
lion into this peace conference. We
claimed that it was possible to set
up such piece Of machinery with
such authority that the balance of
power could be abandoned as a relic
Of the middle ages. We compelled an
entire construction of this treaty and
every word and line in it to bend to
this idea.
Outside Of the League of Nations
the treaty itself has many deficiencies.
1t represents compromises between
many men and between many selfish
interests, and these very compromises
and deficiencies are multiplied by the
many new nations that have entered
upon it's signature, and the very safety
of the treaty itself lies in a court Of
appeal for the remedy Of wrongs in
the treaty.
Benefits Of the League.
Zone thing is certain. There Is no
body of human beings so wise that a
treaty could be made that would not
develop injustice and prove to have
been wrong in some particulars. AS
the covenant stands today there is
place at which redress can be found
and through which the goodwill Of
the world can be enforced. The very
machinery by which the treaty is to
be executed, and scores of points yet
to be solved, which have been referred
to the League of Nations as method
of securing more mature judgment in
a less heated atmosphere, justifies the
creation of the League.
"To abandon the covenant now
means that the treaty itself will col
lapse.
1T would take the exposure Of but
a few documents at my hand to prove
that / had been the most reluctant OF
Americans to become involved in this
situation in Europe. But having gone
in with our eyes open and with de-
termination to free ourselves and the
rest Of the world from the dangers
that surrounded us, we cannot now
pull back from the job. 1t is no use
to hold a great revival and then go
away leaving a church for continued
services half done.
1--WE have succeeded in most ex-
traordinary degree in imposing upon
Europe the complete conviction that
we are absolutely disinterested. The
consequence is that there is scarcely
a man, woman or child who can read
in Europe that does not look to the
United States as the ultimate source
from which they must receive assur-
ances and guardianship in the liberties
which they have now secured after
so many generations of struggle.
.aThis is not a problem of protecting
the big nations, for the few that re-
main can well look after themselves.
What we have done is to set up
score of little democracies, and if the
American people could visualize their
handiwork they would insist with the
same. determination that they did in
1917 that our government proceed"