The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1919-04-25
Sen. Nugent for
League of Nations
Continued from page one)

But in spite of this guarantee, the
last draft of the covenant. specifically
provides that in deciding chief ques-
tions in the council of the league, a
unanimous vote must be had.
The Monroe Doctrine
Arrived at the greatest bugaboo
raised by Americans against the
league, the senator went into our
Monroe doctrine in detail, showed
the reasons for it and the justifica-
tions for our abiding by it until the
present time. Briefly 1t Is state
ment before the world that no
foreign nation may interfere with
governments on the American con-
tinents, nor practice colonization on
this side.
Opponents of the league, said the
senator, do not seem to realize that
the proposed alliance simply extends
the Monroe doctrine to the world; 1t
stops that very same kind of agrees
sion, whether it be tried in America
or any other continent; besides,
when it was first announced by Presi-
dent Monroe, Europe was nest OF
monarchies and rulers over there
wished to help Spain overthrow
South American republics and re-in-
stitute them as monarchies under her
control. Now, said the speaker,
practically every big nation of the
proposed alliance is a republic, or a
monarchial republic.
Domestic Rights Reserved
The senator showed clearly how a
fallacy has been the cause of great
opposition to the league, and the
fallacy is that such an alliance would
throw down the bars of America to
Japanese, or any other, immigration.
He said that under the the first draft,
even, such matters would be left to
the individual nations, but the last
draft specifically sets aside all ques-
lions of domestic, or interior policy,
to the contracting parties.
Washington's Farewell Address
Reading from our first president s
farewell address, which has been so
extensively used against the world
alliance in America, Senator Nugent
called attention to the extreme
change of conditions. ''In Washing
toms time" he said, such policy
of isolation was proper and wise, and
it is we'll that the nation has seen fit
to follow his advice for more than a
hundred years. But things are diff
ferent now. Instead of it taking
months to communicate with Europe,
it is now a matter of few minutes;
instead of months to make trip to
and from Europe, the crossing is now
made in less than week, and air.
ships are being built that will pos
sibly much decrease that time. In
those days, rightly enough, Europe's
affairs were foreign to us, and the
causes of conflict in Europe did not
concern us. But we found in 1917
that no matter how little the causes
of conflict in Europe concerned us,
we were very much concerned in the
results of those causes. We found
that we could not maintain our
neutrality, even tho we were more
powerful nation than perhaps Wash
ington ever dreamed we should be-
Policing Europe
Many gentlemen who are opposed
TO the league have been saying that
we should have to police Europe once
we became member of the league.
That is true, we might. AS for my
self, l should rather see our nation
send 100000 of our boys to maintain
the peace in Europe than to have to
send over five millions of them to
fight in war that has already
broken out"
Each of these clinching arguments
were met by hearty applause.