The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-10-20

picked himself for a second Caeser and stole Plume? This is what 1 happened: Said one Italian officer
 to another: We ought to have Plume. | It is Italian.
 Said the other: Yes, but the League
 of Nations won't permit it. Every
 thing will go before the tribunal and
 Said the first: Ssh! Haven't you 1 heard the news from America? There | isn't going to be any League. Let's l take a chance!
 So they did.
 Do you know what happened when a band of Turks started a minaturs ! massac ere and attendant atrocities in 1 Armenia, AFTER the armistice7 i This is what happened: 1 Said one Turk to another: Thcse
 Armenian dogs should still be our
 slaves, to kill, to beat, to starve, or
 to shame.
 Said the other: Five years ago, yes. But today the League of Ma tions will have something to say l and
 Said the first: Ssh! Haven't you heard the news from America? There | isn't going to be any League. Let's take a chance.
 So they did
 Do you know what happened in Arabia, when the King of Hedjaz started out to include several other persons territory within his new | state? This is what happened: Said the King to the British: I want to be lord of all Arabia from 1 sea to sea.
 Said the British: All right Behave i and remember your friends and we'll help you get it.
 Said the king: But I understand 1 the League of Nations is giving France a share of
 Said the British: Ssh! Haven't l you heard the news from America? l There isn't going to be any League. And so it went.
 Now this isn't hot air Get this idea straight. It is worth remem ber- ing:
 Every international crisis that has arisen since the Peace Conference and existing today has arisen and is existing soley because of the delay in ratifying the Treaty of Peace and the League of Nations.
 Rad it over again. It is the l greatest indictment ever written, for it means that ignorance and false pride are trying to tear down the 1 greatest structure ever raised by man. 1 The Treaty is as much your business 1 as your dinner, and the League of ] Nations should mean as much to you | as your children do, for the League | may save their lives some day. Therefore it is your business to know this: that wherever there is trouble, 1t is your fault Your fault? Yes. your fault. Who are these men who with DitifuI degredation of petty pol ftcal artifice, are trying to wreck
 the Treaty and the League. You ought to know; you elected them; you pay their salaries; you picked them out of their law offices and up
 from their desks and made them leg asIators for the nation. And you are the nation.
 Or course it is your fault You l can shut the mouth of any Iegislator 1 in the country within twelve hours 1 if you want to. You may not be able to put the fear of God in their ! hearts, but you can put the fear of 1 public repudiaion and a lost job. ] Great Britain and France never 1 would have started to squabbIe over
 Asia Minor, and they are squabbline l under cover, if the word hadn't been
 passed among the old-time diplo- l mats that the League of Nations was 1 doomed. Doomed by whom? By l the Turks, the Italians, the Japanese? :? l No, indeed! Doomed by the United 1 States who fought for 1t! l You know what is in your mind about the whole business You think i this: There was probably a good deal ! of monkey business about the treaty. 1 making, and probably a lot of per- | sons think they've got an edge some i way or the other. Maybe they have ] Some say President Wilson was out i maneuvered. Perhaps he was; I'd
 sooner have him outmaneuvered and i stay honest than win every trick on
 the political table. If the others won things not on the face of the Treaty 1 they cheated. I believe that with all | his mistakes, President Wilson is 1 fundamentally honest;nor do I be- 1 lfeve that he is anyone's fool. If he | says that this Treaty is the very l best. that could be got, I believe him. 1 If he says the League of NatIons cov- 1 enant is just what it appears to be, | and bears the interpretation he gives 1 it, believe him. Sign it, and let's 1 get busy. The country has got
 mans job ahead, and I've got part i of it. Let's get busy.
 1 That IS what Tn your heart you are 1 thinking, now. isn't it? Forgetting
 all the political tum- twiddle and | balder- dash, you believe the job is 1 over and you want it over, and you l want it over quickly, the sooner the i better. Moreover you know that,
 Treaty or no Treaty, Covenant or no l Covenant, no one is going to steal the
 United States from under you while
 you@ sleep.
 Then, that being so, you can't af- | ford to say: All right, I want it sign | ed; when it comes to a showdown, ] of course it will be ratified; we'll see
 to that. As you say, it Is only poli- I tical tum- -twiddle and balder-dash.
 Let 'em have their game. You can't afford to say that because their
 game" is costing good red blood in
 Europe today and is likely if the 1 game goes too far, to shed some of your good red blood and your boys, as well.
 You didn't know where Sarajevo was, did you, when that Bosnian boy l shot an archduke of whom you'd never heard? Yet it buried Ameri- can boys along two hundred miles of
 French battlefields. Then, just be- cause Thrace is a long way off, or Armenia, or Plume, don't think it a | game" to let them fester and fo-