The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1919-07-18

exactlv as we please and unhampered
by any obligation or agreements with
any other nation whatsoever, eithar as
to the Interpretation or application
of the doctrine when occasion arises.
"Our entry into the present league
deprives us of the right of national
self-defense, which is just as sacred to
a nation as is the right of personal
self-defense to an individual and more
so. Yet individual right of self-de-
Tense may be offered in excuse or JUS
LITIGATION in any court in any civil
lized country where the charge even
is the taking of human life.
IF we enter this league no such de-
Tense could be made if we, in what
we believed to be necessary self-de-
tense against sudden and unprovoked
attack, used our own means in our
own way to prevent or repel such an
attack, but would be compelled to
await the action and approval of other
nations not in accord with US in re-
ligion, political theory or form of gov
eminent. alien to us in race and
prejudiced against US las is practic-
allv all the world today.
Had the league been acting and
we member under its present clauses
in 1916 Texas would yet have been a
part of Old Mexico, as would my state
of New Mexico, the states of Arizona
and California and part of the state
of Colorado, This section of our
our country would Eave been breed
ing place for Carranzistas and Vii
listas.
Gas has been said before, had the
league been in existence IN 1875 this
great United States of ours, as to the
territory then comprised within it,
would have been colony of Great
Britain.
Should we join the league now the
United States would be in the same
position with reference to freedom of
action-would not even enjoy the
same freedom of action-as is en-
joye d by the British Dominion of
Canada and through Great Britain's
control of the processes of the league
we should be as much subject to do
minion as are South Africa or Aus
tralia.
"The peace treaty itself was not
formed for the United States, but has
been negotiated merely for the pur-
pose of embodying not peace itself,
but the terms of the future peace of
Great Britain, France, italy, Japan
and other countries, and Germany and
Austria, and by the action of the pres
ident of the United States In nego-
tiating it he has obligated the United
States to the written terms of the
treaty purely and solely for the bene-
fit OF the people of the old world, even
If we accept his expression of ser
vice In its broadcast sense.
"The duty of any ruler or chief
magistrate Is, first, the happiness,
prosperity and safety of his own peo-
pie and his own form of government
for the present and for TIE future. No
king of old, whom it is now custom
to criticise and abuse, could have car
ried Great Britain, France, Italy, Rus
STA, Japan or any other country occu-
plying the position of the United
States with no interest of our own to
serve, and jeopardize every proper
interest of its people into such a pro-
nosed league without benz dethronedI
b. his outraged people and exiled or
beheaded as traitor.
The treaty itself. without the cove
nants, changes our entir foreign pol
lev under which we have grown great;
disputes and racial troubles of prac-
tically every country in the world;
and then the league covenants pro-
pose to have US obligate ourselves
to settle such disputes, or to use in
such settlement our blood and our
treasure under such procedure and
under such orders as may be dictated
to US by other nations.
"Of course consideration of the two
matters should be separated and after
such separation both should, in nv
judgment, be rejected. We should
sign a treaty of peace with Germany
upon our own terms and guarding our
own Interests and then sign a decla-
ration with other countries that
tither Germany or any other such
countrv threatening to disturb the
peace of the world, might expect to
meet US in arms &c prevent such dis
turbance If in O. own judgment we
thought it nee. ss;-- to resort to force
Co.