Omaha daily bee., 1919-12-29
British Vie7o of the Treaty

On the day congress adjourned last month
the Washington correspondent of the London
Times sent long dispatch to his paper, review
ing the situation that had developed with rela-
tion to the treaty of Versailles and the covenant
for League OF Nations contained therein As
the Times has staunchly supported the league
from the first, the opinion of its Washington
representative is interesting at least. After
carefully analyzing the progress of the treaty
from the time of the presidents first departure
for Paris and its reception in the senate, and
reaching the conclusion that the people of the
United States have lost their enthusiasm for the
league, having domestic problems Of greater
concern, he writes:
One thing meanwhile can be said with GER
tainty. The president will not be helped in his
discontinue by lectures to the American people
by his late coadjutors in Paris.
The republicans are making capital out of
the statement by Lord Robert Cecil, in which
the word reputation was used. They are de-
riding General Shuts remarks about the pris-
tine enthusiasm Of the American people for the
league. General Smuts and Lord Robert Cecil,
they say, ought to have studied the American
constitution and contemporary American poll
tics before they put all their money on the
president. Mr.. Lloyd George, M. Clemenceau,
and others ought to have done the same before
imganng that by. committing the president to
settlement in which many OF the details are
unpalatable to the American people they were
binding the United States.
The president. they say, went to Paris to
push his own policies when after special ap-
peal for the support of the public he had failed
in the general election: He went unaccom-
fact that the senate shares with him the re-
sponsbty for treaties and is controlled by the
opposition. The peace conference ought, more
over, to have seen from his inability to get &C
ceptance for the league when he returned to the
United States last March that there were break
ers ahead.
There is good deal in this argument. There
can be little doubt that one of the major causes
of the danger in which the league finds itself
is the way in which the president overreached
himself in his enthusiasm for great idea and
the way in which the conference ignored his
constitutional and political position
Mr.. Wilson was too confident at Paris too
confident on his return home. Instead of try
ing to proptiate and educate the senate, he
consistently antagonized it by sneering at their
attacks. Instead of patiently explaining the
league and the treaty to the people, he took
he deemed good for them. Had he been will
ing to compromise some months ago, the
United States would and might now be men,
Der of the league subject to reservations which
really would not greatly matter.
American reluctance to enter the league un-
reservedly and to bless peace settlement
whose wisdom they question in many respects
is due primarily to causes which we have no
right to criticize. The United States is in some
what the same position towards the treaty of
Versailles as we were towards the holy al
lance after the Napoleonic wars Her tradi-
ton and training alike make her doubt the ad-
visibility of foutine interference in European
affairs. She prefers to continue policy which
corresponds closely to our policy of glorious
and benefcient isolation during the last century.
The Atlantic, she thinks, is even in the goth
century as broad as the channel in the 10TH
The idea may be wrong, but it is natural
1t does not Of necessity connote an unfriendly
aloofness from us or any other power. But
there can be little doubt but that its force
might have been much weakened had the presi-
dent been more conciliatory to the republicans
and had he taken more pains to educate both
them and public opinion about the broad signi-
hcance of the changes wrought by the war, and
about the impossibility in the circumstances of
making q utopian peace settlement.