The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-06-17

/ Signing of Treaty Would Confuse
Knox Men.
WASHINGTON, June 17.-Senator
Warren (Wyoming), chairman of the
senate committee on appropriations,
does not intend, if he can muster the
support necessary, to risk having any
thing go wrong with single appropria-
ton bill while the league of nations de
| bate apropos of the Knox resolution is
demanding the time of the senae.
''We have before the senate all the
work it can possibly do if it is done
thoroughly he said, in taking care
of the appropriations and getting them
| into the statute book before July /. If
l can get backing to do it l am going
to insist that nothing else jeopardize
the supply bills.
'<It absolutely will not do to allow
any of them to fail and then extend the
old appropriation laws by resolution.
That would be fearfully expensive to the
treasury because the old bills thus ex-
tended would carry forward the old
scale of appropriations for whatever
period they should be in force, and those
former appropriations are on a scale
so much more generous that this would
cost a great deal of money.
Remembering that the only safe
course is to get these bills actually to
the President, signed by him and depos-
tied in the state department before they
can surely be regarded as making the
l money available, it is pretty evident
l that there will be u period during the
d first half of July when funds will not
be available. Probably it will not cause
l much embarrassment because govern
, ment salaries are paid twice monthly
/. and by the time the mid July install
:, ment is due the bills should have beer
taken to Paris, signed and returned fol
deposit here. Unless this is done
doubt greatly if any bonded officer
would pay money on them.
- do not consider that the case o
10 the war risk insurance measure create
a precedent in favor of authorizing us
i6f funds by Gable before the bills ar
t actually signed and deposited. In tina
case there was no possibility that any
er body would object; in this there Nigh
le be objection and a responsible office
n compelled to make q decision.
It If the bills are passed in time
)t should be possible to get them acros
g signed and returned in time for the Jul
nj 10 payment of salaries. Other govern
Is ment payments can be allowed to wal
5 few days if necessary without niue
inconvenience. The President, by
stretch quite imaginable, might hav
claimed that the war risk bureau mes
0 sure was war emergency one, but tina
can hardly be claimed in behalf of a
0 appropriations now pending.
0 In view of developments in Pari
l where it is announced the whole peaC
0 treaty is to be rewritten, and in Ge
0 many, the feeling is strong in Washing
0 ton that signatures to the document wi
not be affixed by July l and therefor
. the protagonists of the Knox resolutio
2 are likely to have more time to pres
their case than they expected at II
time the resolution was introduced.
q Should the treaty be signed befo
y the resolution reaches a vote, it woul
y in the opinion of senate leaders. have
= be dropped and some form of expressiC
taken up by way of expressing modi
. cations and reservations in connecti,
y with the consideration preliminary
n ratification. This would necessarily tai
n :" nv i'A III NiiouSl tiC us liOSlIloH Is
make the Knox resolution the substa
. tial basis of expression for whatev
reservation is to be insisted upon by t
senate.
= Should the opposition to any modi
. cation proye s+rnnr ononah 10 ,ro,Vo
son passage of any resolution or modifc
by ton or reservation, then would COZ
it'll the tug Of war-thc test on the questi
n of ratifying or rejecting the treaty
self. If modification should be defeat
- by close margin, and on both sides
~s the chamber it is conceded that its {
feat would be by q narrow majors
then there still remains the questi
whether the opposition would be will
to reject.