The Ocala evening star., 1919-09-18
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

against the League Oh NdLlonS Cou-
pactly and comprehensively when 1t
says:
What is your choice of company?
Dc you prefer to sit in with people
who support the treaty, or who wish
| to destroy it?
The thing has been hanging fire so
| Ilong-two months now-and there has
been such a cloud of wrangling about
| it in Washington, and the newspapers
have printed so much of that back
forth talk, that great many peo-
pie must have put off thinking about
it at all until something should hap
pen. Now they must take hold anew,
for something has happened. The
president has made it happen. He has
gone out on the road to take the bull
by the horns and haul him out of his
/ corner.
| So it's time for folks to make up
their minds about this treaty, and
do something.
/ Which crowd do you like better?
Take up the paper, any paper, and
look it through.
The American Bar Associations
special committee reports and says:
Pass the treaty as it is, and make
amendments afterward.
The national socialist party in con-
lvention in Chicago indorses the soviet
republic in Russia, and condemns the
League of Nations.
The Presbyterian convention at
Lake Geneva. Wisconsin, voted unani-
mously in favor of the treaty; all the
Methodists except Thomas B. Neely
are for it. but Senator Smoot, Nor
mon, says it is contrary to his relig-
ion, and he will vote against it. The
Mormons do not all endorse his view
that what is hoped for from the treaty
is incompatible with forecasts in the
Mormon bible, but Smoot is the lead
ing Mormon senator, so the Mormon
vote that counts will be counted
against it.
/, The Roman Catholics are more di-
vided on the treaty than any other
leading group of church people be-
cause nearly all of them are by de-
scent Irish, German or Italian, and
Ireland, Germany and Italy are all
more or less sore because the treaty
has not done better by them. Never
theless, there must be many Irish
Catholics who favor the treaty, and
D probably some German and Italian
Catholics also, and perhaps the visit
of Cardinal Mercisr will increase the
number.
France is for the treaty. Mexico
: is opposed to it. Great Britain has
ratified it.
Former Senator Murray Crane OF
Massachusetts is for it. Actual Sena.
tor Lodge is not for it, and actual
Senator Walsh. democrat, being ar
Irishn1an, and anxious to do a stroke
for Ireland. is too hospitable tc
e aaendments and reservations.
Il ALI the Prussians, all the junkers
in the world of whatever race OF
|. country, are against the treaty
= Where you find man too stupid tt
understand any means of persuasion
more subtle than money or brute
d force, you will find an opponent of the
e treaty. The british man is instinct
E lively against treaty that aims t.
o diminish brutishness. The brutisl
n man does not wish to be diminished
IS can only be that in considerably
y british world that tolerates british
s. ness, and admires it when it bludgeon
% it's way through to something i
p wants.
But, of course, all opponents of tn
treaty are not british, though tina
}: type is powerfully represented anon,
n its leading antagonists. Most of then
e are partisan politicians. Some of then
l. are mere backward-lookers who ar
le not consciously averse to the world
IN being bettered, but are quite unabl
is to imagine its being done. Some me-
& or great renown in our revolutionar
= times were vehement in opposition t
the constitution. Patrick Henry o
"Give me liberty or give me death,
was one of them; James Monroe, VIII
gave his name to the Monroe doctrine
! was another; George Mason, afte
Washington the first citizen of Viz
| ginia, refused to sign it. He though
J it gave too much power to Congress
and the executive. But John Mar
! shall and James Madison fought fo
| it, and Virginia finally accepted it, an
| in New York Hamilton and Jay wo
| the fight for it against the Clintons.
i Mr.. Moorfield Storey began an ad
| dress in South Carolina last June wit
J the observation that civilization
the process of restraining the will Q
the individual law" but the idea Q
being restrained is always painful t
the individual and it is hard to &c
him to approve of it. He prefers t
restrain someone else. 1t is the sam
way with nations, and that was tn
main basis of objection to the const
tuition, and is the main objection no,
to the League of Nations. But tn
constitution, in spite of imperfection
has been a handy document, and tn
I1eaOue of NationS will he another