New-York tribune., 1919-02-26
The Great Silence

Our neighbor The Times, which seems
firmly in the grip of the Lansdownism
which seized it last autumn and which it
afterward briefly threw off. asks critics
of the covenant to state their own plan.
1t adds, contrary to the truth, that mot
one suggestion of any other plan, any
substitute proposal of defence against
the horrors of war, any hint of a means
BY which the feeling Of cordial friend
ship between the nations united against
Germany" etc, has been offered.
This challenge, it is hardly neces-
sary to say, is based on an assumption
false in fact. 1t is not true that those
who see no peace or promise of peace
in the pending plan are opposed to
guarantees for future peace. 1t is not
true that they have failed to bring for
ward counter proposals. Desperate must
be the need which seeks to bemuddle
great issue and befuddle the public by
such tactics.
1t recalls days when Mr.. Bryan ragged
up and down the country saying all who
disliked his 16 to 1 quackery were seek
ing to cruelty mankind on cross of
gold-were trying to press a crown of
thorns about the brow of labor. We be-
hold perfervid rhetoric used as gar
ment to cover the nakedness of extreme
vagueness-to conceal the indefiniteness
OF a what-is-it proposal which no pro-
ponent has thus far ventured to explain.
The significant opposition to the pend
ing plan is based Oh the belief that there
IS no permanent peace in it-that it is
not what it pretends to be- No history
IS so dreary as that of vain hopes-
those siren voices listening to which, as
an old American orator said, we are
transformed into beasts.
peace plan that assures nothinp
that Is barren of bulwarks, that is
mere rewrite of the Hague convention.
IS not only useless, but positively harm
full. 1t will be accepted as guarantee
to the exclusion of plan worth while.
1t will stand in the way of setting 10
true guarantees of peace Here is the
great menace of the present situation
the danger that it will not be made use
of: There is an opportunity which it
were wickedly unintelligent not to see.
The plan now before the world does
not seem materially superior to the
Hague convention. We have a right to
fear it will prove weak reed in time
OF crisis. No one has yet pointed out
in any orderly or convincing manner
wherein the proposed league is better,
or promises to be more effective, than
the one it supplants-one that was
proved TO be worthless.
Iwo general methods have been urged
Tor meeting the problem. One is for
genera! league which shall be orqan-
'zed on the principle of a federation Of
mankind-a United States Of the world.
MS was what the President must have
rad IN his thought when he spoke in
~'a'y OF the new psychological men ho-
coming internationally minded with
their fundamental allegiance running f.
'ne human family as q whole rather
tnaH TO any particular nation. snro,, e
nooie ideal, one to which any man NAV
Aooly devote his effort, one which ulti-
mately is likely to be realized.
But this conception necessarily in
wolves super-sovercignty-a merging Of
Aatlonalism into internatonalism. with
agencies responsive to the power creat-
ing 1t. No one win say that the nlan
before us is of this character. It DOES
not begin, eve, the people of the world
do ordain and establish The President
iaid down premises and then ran awav
from the necessary conclusion. We can
draw an illustration from the history of
our own nation. 1t is az If Washington
and mis- co-workcrs in the Constitutional
Convention Of 1877, after declaring
national upion was essential, had drawn
vp an instrument based on the false
principles,of the Articles Of confedera-
tiou. Win the test caxne the nation
=