Arizona republican., 1919-09-06
sidetrackina the senate

careful perusal of the presidents address at Columbus and Indianapolis in support of the League of Nations fails to uncover any argument more forceful than those which which put out in his or than which had been made by Mir. Taft and the other supporters of the league. Indeed they consist of characteristic generalzatons which do not touch in the slightest degree upon the real controversy be- tween the president and the opposing senators.
 Mir Wilson speaks of the beauties of peace and pictures condition in which would be made i'm possible That condition would be all nations in per feet accord all with earnest desire to avoid All this is something concerning which there is controversy. There are not more than five senators who are not in full accord with the president far
 If the opponents of the present plan, the president tells his audiences have better plan than the one let them bring out That though is not the question before the It is the presidents plan that is under consideration. No is proposed or can proposed without another world conference The business before the senate is ascertain wherein if at al the presidents plan is defective and if so how the defects may be remeded.
 That phase of the controversy and that is all there is of the controversy has not been fanty alluded to by the president who confines himself asking his audiences to demand of their affix their signatures by rubber stamp otherwise the peace treaty it stands. without the crossing of "t' the dotting of ri" if it happens that such defects appear in the document brought back from Paris
 The speeches of the president begin with the statement that he is making his report to the people accounting of his stewardship. concerning matter with which they entrusted him The president was in the first place not sent upon such mission and he has not been summoned by the people to make report to them. He within his rights in going abroad and the constitution provides and where reports shall be made in such cases. The reports -toITh r1to of the treaty itself and information concerning the circumstances in which an agreement was reached that the senate may be guided in the business of approving rejecting the report The president has withheld from the senate much of the proceedings by which the agreement reached in this It the treaty of 25s pages before it.
 The people to whom the president is now reporting know less than the senate Not one in thousand of them has read the treaty, while the senators all presumably have done so and some of them have studied ntensvey. Yet the people are urged to tell their senators for the treaty the covenant The people are expected go farther to intimi- date their senators into yielding to the executive branch of the government.
 The president may be right and the senators may be wrong But far the people who have yet heard the president only the presidents unsup ported word that he is right and that senate is wrong concourse of 16OOO people saw him but many of them could hear him at Indianapolis They had gathered there at the state fair the races to see corpuent hogs cattle of a royal strain arisocratic horses and prize winning chickens They did not convoe themselves for the purpose of usurr ing and exercising senatorial function of ratifyng off-hand world treaty.
 The people with their welI-developed common sense will perhaps think of something that seems to have been far generally overlooked, and that is that the ratification of treaty treaty of much less important than this is very serious mat ter. 50 serious did the framers of constitution re- gard it. that they provided that if it appeared to even minority of the senators, equal one more than onefhrd of them, to be inimcal the interests of the country, it should be rejected When the people understand this they will probably decline to indulge in treaty ratification at state county or district fairs in other assembages convened for purpose foreign to treaty making
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