New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1919-08-31
AS Things Are

Senator Knox, former Secretary OF
State, and an authority on international
law, and former Attorney General, and
learned in American constitutional law,
says peace can be made with Germany
by the passage by Congress of con-
current resolution. Congress, he says,
declares war, and consequently may de-
clare peace; body that can enact, may
repeal. This seems as sound law as it is
sound common sense. The President has
recently expressed contrary view, but
the President has been known to be
mistaken.
Passing from the field of law to that
of opinion, Senator Knox holds it would
have been wiser if the peace treaty had
been separated from the league project.
Few candid persons will disagree with
him as TO this. The peace treaty pri-
marily relates to the past and the pres
ent-is a settlement of particular war.
The covenant entirely relates to the
future-not to adjusting a quarrel, but
to preventing new ones. The two sets
of problem are not logically connected.
The argument that if the league prof.
ect be not made part of the peace
treaty no league is possible in effect says
no peace league is workable. If the league
idea is not strong enough to stand alone
it is not strong enough to stand at all.
A peace settlement necessarily punitive
should not have been hitched to the
scheme for general society of nations.
The President, who was responsible for
the joinder, repeated the blunder Gar
Alexander committed when the so-called
Holy Alliance was formed
But though the Senator is right, both
as lawyer and a statesman, when mat
tiers are viewed in the abstract, it is
unfortunately true they cannot be viewed
In the abstract. They must be looked
at not from the viewpoint of what should
be, but of what is. The question remains
whether it is desirable for Congress to
end the war by proclamation.
Are we willing, as would be implied by
proclaimed peace, to return to Germany
her sequestered merchant ships? Would
we concede to Germany, so far as we are
concerned, the privilege of new fleet of
submarines and of creating a new great
army? Do we want Germany to go scot
free with respect to the Lusitania slaugh-
ter and allow the heirs of the Lusitania
victims to get nothing, on the score of
right, and to be Inundated by being
offered bounty out of our national treas
ury? Such surrenders would be difficult
to defend in the forum of public opinion.
Peace by bare proclamation is not the
wish, it may be assumed, of our people.
Nor will it be denied that peace and
the league question, for the time >being
at least, have been entangled. Our allies
yielded to the Presidents programme
even though they may have suspected
that 1t was devised rather to meet the
exlgencies of American politics than to
serve a great cause. So it happens that
the league must come into being as part
or the peace treaty or not come for many
years. The chances of getting anything
from an entirely new conference NAV be
regarded as now mil. So Senator Knox.
IAN advocate of some international
society in the interest of peace. finds
tnere must be some sort Of acceptance of
the covenant scheme or probably nothing
during his lifetime
II the facts are as stated and the con-
vlctlons of Senator Knox are as he has
repeatedly stated them, the practical
questions concerning the covenant re-
nam as they were; namely, first, whether
me instrument can be brought into &C
cord with Americanism; and, second.
whether what is left will be worth rati
Tying. These things the Senator did not
o'scuSs-ah omission of good omen, as
indicative of how his vote will be cast
should ne TAIL to win majority of the
Senate to his personal opinion. It NAV
be surmlsed the Senator realizes that the
covenant can be Americani2ed by reser-
vations and that he sees good in estab-
fishing an international debating society
where grievances may be aired even
though it possesses no real power.
But the Senator went further than
to argue for the separation of the peace
treaty proper and the covenant, and
further than to criticise the covenant.
de went so far as to urge the rejection of
the peace treaty proper as hard and
cruel; not hard and cruel to China, or
to Italy, but to Germany and to Bolshe-
vik Russia.
Senator Knox was one of the first
Americans to perceive the necessity of