The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1919-04-09
As England Sees
Us; An Essay
(From the London Mail. J

PUBIC opinion. Mauy europeans anu
some European delegates to the peace
conference are asking whether he is
also true exponent of American Op-
inion. The question is natural Europ-
can and American affairs are just now
so interviewer that Europeans may be
forgiven for wanting to know exactly
what is. behind the presidents inter
probation of American feeling.
It is not easy for them to find out.
The views of Americans who ought
to know often differ. Independent
European judges of opinion in the
United States are reticent. What is
to be done? Canny folk Whose. ruling
passion is fear of backing the wrong
horse shake their heads and look mys-
ferrous. Had not Mr.. Asquith discre-
dited the phrase they might pluck up,
enough courage to say "Wait and see.'
wait and see'-what? Whether the
United States senate will pass the
)peace treaty or whether the next pres
ident will be Democrat or Repub-
lican? Europeans who reason thus
have not only "gone small" They have
gone nearly blind. Overriding sight
edness leads them to stumble over
their own doorsteps. They do not see
that the peace treaty has to be made;
that it must be made quickly and well,
and that, if it be no made quickly and
well with the League of Nations to
back it all the caution in the world
will not save the greater part of Eur
ope from bankruptcy and Bolshevism
nor the United States from an isola-
ton, economic and political, that will
be anything but splendid.
But suppose that the American peo-
pie do not want their country to be
tied up in League of Nations and
wish to sit on their part of the North
American continent all by themselves
and to rejoice in backsliding from
what might have been their high es-
tate? The American people, as a
whole, cannot be made Immediately
and Enthusiastically articulate, but Eur
opeans have no right to attribute to
| it small selfishness of temperament
when it's whole record since it enter
ed the war has been one of big unset
fishness.
1t used to be said of President Will
son that he was an astute politician;
that he always "kept the window OPP
en-" so as to hear voices from outside;
that he had his ear "close to the
ground" so as to detect the soft APP
proach of public opinion Now he is
represented as a wild idealist divorced
from, or careless of, the feelings of his
fellow citizens and saying to Europe
and to the world: II am the American
people"
A man on the wrong side of so does
not change his characteristics over.
night. If he was a shrewd judge of
American opinion before, he is very
probably shrewd judge of it now.
Besides, it may reasonably be suppos :
ed that, with all his idealism, he has
no wish to become either laughing
stock or butt for the curses of man !
kind
He said at New York; "The first
thing that | am going to tell the peu-
pie on the other side of the water is
that an overwhelming majoriy of AM
erican people is in favor of the League
of Nations. know that that is true. /"
This he said on the evening of March
4. Next day there was by-election
in the TWenty-second congress district
of Greensburg, Pa. With only one IL
terruption, the representation of that
district has been held by the Republi-
can party ever since the party was
founded. Last November it returned
a Republican, anti Wilson man by a
majority of 5000 on a total register
OF some 10000. On March 5 it return
ed, by majority of 500, Democra-
tic Wilson man, who stood as an out
and-out supporter of the League of
Nations.
This may not be the voice of The
American people, but it sounds IN
commonly like whisper from small
but significant section of the American
people. If faithless and perverse Eur
opeans seek after a sign in American
politics, let them examine this one.
However wrong President Wilson
may be about American public FEELING.
he was certainly right when he said at
| New York, Europe is a bit sick at
this very moment. because it sees
that statesmen have had no vision and
the only vision has been the vision of
the people. Those who suffer, see. .
Europe is sick at heart. We Europe
ans know it. We know also that if
the. sickness be not speedily cared,
worst sickness will follow. We know.
too, that the only available cure is an
application of the European and Am
erican ideas that, for want of bet
ter, go by the name of "Wilson."
What then is to be done? One very
simple thing. European statesmen
must help Wilson with all their might
and get him to help them in applying
the cure. They must help him and he
must help them for the sake of his
people and of their own. AS shrewd
Italian Socialist leader recently said,
the real choice is Wilson" or tie
nine"