The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-02-26
CURRENT COMMENT.
Important or Otherwise.

Taft's genius as a presiding officer
coupled with the various and varied
speeches he, by virtue of his office as
president of the league, must utter.
He clearly explained and espoused
the great offices and duties of the
league. The delegates crowd his
meetings. his luncheons, and receive
him with affeetionate response. The
details are told in the Associated Press
and United Press reports printed in
the State journal
At the very first sessions Kansas
was most creditably lin evidence
There were great addresses by great
men: Henry Morgenthau. our former
ambassador to Turkey; Doctor Wilson
of Harvard, the expert on internation-
al law; Edward Filene. the Marshall
Field merchant prince of Boston; for
mer Governor Folk; DR.. Lawrence
Lowell. president of Harvard univer-
sity; Henry Van Dyke. former minis
ter to the Netherlands-but kansas
held her own
was declared to be at least as good as
the best. He thrilled his hearers and
commanded close attention and ap-
plause.
He said in small part:
Il have been asked to represent in
this congress the interest of the rural
and agricultural forces of the country
in a League of Nations 1t is a ques-
tinV, 7 of no
diences in which the rural and agri-
cultural interests largely predomi-
mated, and from the response that has
been given l feel sure the statement
is warranted that these interests not
only would welcome such an organiza-
ton. but that they demand it as one
of the fruits of the war, as one of
the trophies of the triumph of civili-
zation over barbarism.
The people for whom I am Ven
turing to speak here are not pacifists.
On every battlefield of the Republic
the men from the farms and the small
towns have demonstrated that they
are not unwilling to fight nor afraid
to fight. More than half a century
ago my own state of Kansas sent more
soldiers into the ranks of the Union
army than she had voters, and in the
war just ended she not only sent her
full quota of men but her people
largely oyersubscribed the sum allotted
in every liberty loan and in every
Red Cross, Y NJ. c. A. and other war
work drive. Kansas was for this war
with all her heart and with all her
might and she is inexpressibly proud
of the heroic record her sons have
made in France and Flanders, from
Chateau Thierry to Sedan.
The people of Kansas are not paci-
fists. But they are lovers of peace.
They hate war. And one of the rea-
sons they fought SO willingly and so
fiercely in this war was because they
knew that this frightful cataclysm
would never have come upon the
world had not a great and powerful
of Peace and set up in His place the
God of War.
THE program proposed by this or
ganization at it's first meeting in
Philadelphia in 1915 was:
Il. An international court to con-
slider and render judgment on all
justiciable issues
80. A court of Cancellation to rec
ommend compromises on all nom
justiciable questions.
80. The nations to unite their power
to restrain any member of the league
that might begin war before submits
sion of the question to these trib-
unaIs.
81 A congress of nations to codify
international law.
TT is to that program the people
have been educated. It is that pro-
gram they want executed"