Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1919-07-16

ity whose decisions would be recog-.
nized as decisions which all must re-
spect.
And so the most practical, the most
skeptical among them turned more
and more to the league as the author
ity through which international action
was to be secured, the authority with
out which, as they had come to see it,
it would be difficult to give assured
effect either to this treaty or to any
other international understanding
upon which they were to depend for
the maintenance of peace. The Fact
that the covenant of the league was
the first substantive part of the treaty
to be worked out and agreed upon,
while all else was in solution, helped
to make the Foundations of the rest
easier. The conference was, after all,
not to be ephemeral. The concert OF
nations was to continue, under a defi5,
mite covenant which had been agreed
upon and which all were convinced
was workable. They could go for
ward with confidence to make ar
rangements intended to be permanent.
The most practical of the conferees
were at last the most ready to refer
to the league of nations the superln-
tendenct of all interests which did not
admit of immediate determination, OF
all administrative problems which
were to require continuing over.
sight. What had seemed a counsel
of perfection had come to seem
plain counsel of necessity. The league
of nations was the practical states
mans hope of success in many OF the
most difficult things he was attempt
ing.
And it had validated itself in the
thought of every member of the con-
ference as something much bigger,
much greater every way, than a mere
instrument for carrying out the pro-
visions of a particular treaty. 1t was
universally recognized that all the
peoples of the world demand of the
conference that it should create such
a continuing concert of free nations
as would make wars of aggression
and spoliation such as this that has
just ended forever impossible. A cry
had gone out from every home in
every stricken land from which sons
and brothers and fathers had gone
forth to the great sacrifice that such
a sacrifice should never again be ex-
acted. 1t was manifest why it had
been exacted. 1t had been exacted
because one nation desired dominion
and other nations had known no
means of defense except armaments
and alliances. War had lain at the
heart of every arrangement Of the
conferences affecting the states OF
Europe-of every arrangement of the
world-that preceded war. Restlve
peoples had been told that fleets and
armies, which they toiled to sustain,
meant peace; and they now know
that they had been lied to; that fleets
and armies had been maintained to
promote national ambitions and
they knew that no old policy meant
anything else but force, force-always
force. And they knew that it was
intolerabIe. Every true heart in the
world and every enlightened judg;;
ment demanded that, at whatever cost
of independent action, every govern
ment that took thought for its people
or for justice or for ordered freedom
should lend itself to new purpose
and utterly destroy the old order of
international politics. Statesmen
might see difficulties, but the people
could see none and could brook no
denial. A war in which they had
been bled white to beat sthe terror
that lay concealed in every balance
of power must not end in mere VIC
tory of arms and a new balance. The
monster that had resorted to arms
must be put in chains that could not
be broken. The united power of free
nations must put stop to aggres-
sion, and the world must be given
peace. If there was not the will or
the intelligence to accomplish that
now, there must be another and a
finaEwar and the world must be swept
clean of every power that could re-
new the terror. The league of ma
tions was not merely an instrument
to adjust and remedy old wrongs un-
der new treaty of peace; it was the
only hope of mankind. Again and
again had the demon Of war been
cast out of the house of the peoples
and the house swept clean by treaty
of peace; only to prepare time when
he would enter in again with spirits
worse than himself. The house must
now be given tenant who could hold
it against all such. Convenient, in
deed indispensable, as statesmen
found the newly planned league of
nations to be for 1.-THE execution of
present plans Of peace and repara-
II ~ 1,o