Crossville chronicle. [volume] (Crossville, Tenn.) 1894-current, 1919-09-24
THE "IRREDUCIBLE MINIMUM"
What Must Be Done to the Treaty to
Safeguard American Interests,

The Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations has spoken, with no uncer-
tain sound. 1t did so simultaneously
with the President s opening speech in
his appeal to the nation against its own
representatives. 1t did so in a way
much more direct. explicit and intel
ligible than his, in way to which it
will be difficult for him to reply and
which it would be impossible for him
to answer.
1t adopted, as an integral part of
the act of ratification of the Treaty,
four reservations. These in both mat
ter and manner express the "irreduc-
ibe minimum" of legitimate demand
for Americanization of the Treaty.
They require:
THAT the United, States shall
have the right to with draw from
the League of Nations at its own will
on giving the notice required by the
Covenant:
2-That the United States shall not
be required to intervene in any way in
any foreign controversy save at its
own will expressed by act OF Con-
gress;
3-That the United States shall re-
serve for self-determination all ques-
tions which it considers:to be purely
domestic; and
4-That the Monroe Doctrine shall
be preserved intact, for our sole inter
probation.
We do not believe that there is a
man in the Administration or on Its
side, not even the President himself,
who in his heart denies thejustice or
the desirabiliy of every one of these
provisions. We do not believe that
there is one who, unless under some
sinister constraint, would venture
publicly to dispute their justice and
desirabllity, not to say their necessity.
For what would such denial newt
ably impIy9 An affirmation OF their
converse. We do not believe that the
President himself, even at the climax
of the Aamboyant propaganda in which
he is now engaged, would venture to
tellthose fellow citizens to whom alone,
he insists, he owes any report of his
doings, that
Our right of withdrawal from the
League of Nations should be depen-
dent upon the will and pleasure OF
some alien powers;
2-That we should be required to
intervene, in alien affairs, with diplo-
matte, economic or military force,
aginst our own will and without the
sanction of our own government;
3-That we should submit tc ALLEN
determination matters which we con-
slider purely domestic; or
4-That the Monroe Doctrine should
be abandoned or surrendered for inter-
probation to the very alien powers
against which it was directed.
1t is understood that some, perhaps
even the President himself, concede
the propriety of these reservations,
but hold that they should not be made
a part of the act OF ratification, to
which other slgnattries are required
formally to assent, but tnat they
should be adopted after ratification, in
a purely explanatory manner.
The answer is obvious: Such adop-
tion would not be worth the breadth
which it took to make it. The adoption
proposed by the Committee is the only
form which ould make the reserva-
tion effective.
There are also those, perhaps among
them the President himself, who
deprecate such adoption of such reser-
vations, for tear that it will be dis
pleasing to the other principal sigma
tories of the Treaty.
Let US consider what that means.
Those other signatorles either approve
or disapprove the purport of the reser-
vations. If they approve it, they will
not object to the adoption of the reser-
vations, but will themselves promptly
and cordially acquiesce in them; as
they or some Of them have hitherto
acquisced in similar reservations. If
on the otner hand they disapprove it,
that is the most conclusive reason
imaginable for making the reservations
and for insisting upon them at what
eyre cost for it is proot that if they
were not mace and enforced, alien