The Daily Ardmoreite. [volume] (Ardmore, Okla.) 1893-current, 1919-10-15
One Form Of Entanglement With Europe
Qrom the New York Evening POs)
By GENE BYRNES

The other day Herbert Hoover passed
through San Francisco ON his way to
PalO Alto to rejoin his family with
whom he has spent just one month in
the course of the last five years, "l am
going to live in a place. said Mr..
Hover, where | hope no one will say
to me, l am cold; / am hungry" In
six primitive words ne summed up the
truth and the tragedy Of Europe. They
might well be taken to heart by the
politicians at Washington who have
been clamoring against Americas en-
tunglement in EurOpes sinister quar-
rels VINO have suddenly discovered that
the actions with which we fought shoul-
der to shoulder for great cause, and
which have made sacrifices enormously
greater than our own for that cause.
are a. gang of selfish imperialists; that
these nations which called to us for
help will now band themselves into con
Spracies against the rights and liberties
Of America. This country Is to be en-
l.ced into plots for the enslaVement Of
oppressed nationalities and for the per
petuation of wars. America, with its
one hundred millions, virtually mtouch'
ed by, the war, is to be made the tool
Of a crippled derelict Europe, whom
we had to bolster up with our arms and
keep alive with our food
If il were not for the fact that Wash
ington has recently been showing us the
contrary it would seem impossible to
think of statesmen Vocing the demand
that America abandon Europe in the
atter's time of need; that we default
on the obligations arising out of the
conditions we helped to create by our
participation in the war The peoples
Of the continent are still cold and
hungry. It seems incredible that there
should be men to condemn our work
i'm Europe with one sweeping word, "en.
tanglement." But the eXigencies Of pol
itlcs are presumably not to be denied,
and the work of a Hoover in Belgium,
in Poland, i'm Austria, in the Balkans,
becomes enanglement and imbrogllo.
"What business have we with the ma
tionS Of Europe anyhow, now that the
war is over and Germany is beaten?'
No business except that we have the
food without which the war-racked peo'
pies would sink in despair; that we
nave the raw materials without which
they can not enter again into the normal
course of an international economic life.
We have no business across the Atlantic
other than the salVags Of starving WON,
en- and children, than the affirmation
of the victory over Germany by making
il possible for the new nationalities to
maintain their new-won freedom, than
the re.establishment and defense OF
public order against the destructive rev
olutionsm which comes from want and
despair. Only by drawing picture OF
Europe as a tangle of raw POLITICAL am
bitions and completely forgetting Eu'
rope as a continent struggling back
from chaos to civilization could the
American people be asked to wash their
hands of Europe.
Enemies of the treaty have labored
valiantly in besmirchng America 5
share in the peacemaking. Crimnally
or weakly, Mr.. Wilson allowed himself
to be made the tool of the sinister Eu-
ropean diplomats, and the reconstruc-
ton of Europe as the treaty envisages
it represents the triumph of unadulter.
ated wckedness. 1t has been found
convenient to forget Americas achieve
ments in the enumeration Of her fail
ures. Here again il has been convenient
to forget Mr.. Hoover. The food which
poured into Germany, helped the ele
ments of order in that country to assert
| themselves against red revolution; the
threat of food blockade which brought
| Poland to reason when her newborn
nationalism threatened to run riot
| American insistence with Italy that
food supplied to that country must not
be used in the disputed regions as q
mode of coercion against the Jugo
| Slavs: this powerful weapon used by
America in behalf of justice and reason
has been forgotten 1t was Mr.. Hoov
ers vehement protest against Rouman
ian excesses in Hungary that forced the
recent drastic intervention by the peace
conference in the form of an ultmatun
to Roumania. 1t is hardly necessary tC
wait for the future historian to show
how powerful factor Hoover and al
that his name stands for has been II
our diplomacy. And 1t has been force
that has worked for good.
The American people have been in
vited by Mr.. Wilson's enemies to think
Of the Hotel Crllon, the home of oul
peace delegation in Paris, as house
"NEKTTTXT' Tzff0R