The Aberdeen weekly. [volume] (Aberdeen, Miss.) 1878-1933, 1919-05-30
The Mockery Of Free Oovernment

The Weekly publishes the ed
itorlal which follows this com
ment because il appears TO pre-
sent an intelligent exegesis of the
world situation as ii now con-
fronts the Peace Conference
at Versailles.
The criticisms and the presumed
purposes of the Peace Confer
ence indulged in by the writer.
must appeal TO tine reader accord
ingly as the evidences in support
of them may or may not strike
him as apparent The editorial
is commended as inviting to care
full perusal and sober thought:
As the hour approaches for the
deliberations at Paris the people of
the United States are watching the
proceedings with intense interest,
and weighing carefully every piece
of information that leaks from the
secret conferences. Americans have
never before faced such a situation.
or anything resembling it. Their
government IL pursuing policy
that differs go radically from any
thing that was ever done before, or
even dreamed of, that all Ameri
cans, from President Wilson to the
newest voter, are cropping in untried
territory, with strange ground un-
derfoot and unfamiliar skies over
head.
There was a chart called the
Fourteen Points. which was to lead
nations through the wilderness, but
the clash of many national interests
and the shock resulting from the
attempted adjustment of facts to
theories have made this chart a
scrap of paper. The peoples have
abandoned it, No one is now de-
manding an inspection OF it except
the Germans, and their demand is
made for the purpose of still further
confusing the allies.
As the history of these times
comes to be reviewed hereafter, we
believe the candid opinion of the
world will fix upon the secrecy at
Paris as one of the prime causes of
allied inability to hammer out a
massive and durable peace on the
anvil of truth. The allied govern
ments are not lacking in men of
ability. Their delegates at Paris
are men who have made their way
to the front by the attritiOn of abili-
ty and character. They are not in
ferior TO the German delegates
Yet the net result of their labors up
TO this time is unsatisfactory to the
allied peoples. The peoples ask for
swift and decisive action and they
do not get it. They ask for
treaty that will bind the enemy and
put him to work paying his blood
debt, and they get a mixture of
treaty and league OF nations, a
thing of doubt in all it's parts.
What nation knows how much it
is to obtain from the spoilers. or
when, or at what cost? What ma
tion can tell when its soldiers will
he withdrawn from Germany and
demobilized? What nation stands
ready to turn the conduct of its
foreign relations over to a council of
nine gentlemen at Geneva, eight of
whom are foreigners? The treaty
says this will be done, but the res
ervations made by France, En-
gland, Italy. and Japan, together
with the protest from the United
States show clearly that this will
not be done.
Not one of the nations mentioned
is i'm genuine sympathy with the ac-
tion of its delegates in agreeing TO
create a council of supermen at
Geneva. The league provisions are
forcibly thrust into the treaty at the
behest of the American delegation,
purporting to speak for the people
of the United States. and it is now
rapidly becoming known both here
and abroad that the whole proceed
ing. so far as the league provisions
are concerned. is a mock heroic |
pantomime, without any expecta-
tion that the allied and American
peoples will accept the proposal.
The allied delegates have merely
met difficult situation by signing
anything demanded by the Ameri- !
cans. leaving to the future and the |