The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-09-02
SENATOR KNOX ON TREATY
Discusses the Harshness OF the Tern1e
Imposed on Germany.


| Senator KnoN's remarkable speech
| yesterday afternoon presented an OBJ
| lection to our ratification of the
| treaty--not merely the league of ma
| tons covenant but the whole treaty
| which is entirely novel so far 8 any
| previous public expression of it at the
capitol is concerned. Senator Knox
who was one of the most vigorous
supporters of the nations cause when
we were fighting Germany for reasons
which nobody has more clearly and
accurately defined than himself in his
resolutions of last December, now de-
clares his belief that the terms of set
tlement reached at Paris by President
Wilson and the other negotiators are
harsh, cruel and impossible of practical
application without breeding new wars
and involving the world from a hum
dred centres or trouble, in future
strife inestimable. For that reason Mr..
Knox styles the document that is now
before the senate not the treay of Ner-
sailles but the truce of Versailles
We do not understand the senator to
mean that, from the point of view of
Britain or France or Italy, the extreme
punitive measures contemplated hy the
treaty MS now drafted. and as already
ratified by two of the powers concerned.
are too severe a punishment for Ger
many's unparalleled crime of 1914. But
he does hold that it is not our func-
tion@to administer the harshness of II
or to participate in that cruelty. q
see no reason" he says, "why we. who
do not partakc of its spells. should be-
come parties to its harshness and
cruelty.
OF course there is not a particle of
pro- Germanism in Senator Knox's view
of this matter. Nobody will accuse him
or suspect him of unpatriotic sympathy
with the government and the people
against whom rpNNDflNr in lu
helliEcrent relation, With this eN-
perienCcd and able statesman and 100
per cent American the question is
surely one of the effect of these harsh
cruel and practically impossible stpu-
lations, carrying the punishment be-
You'd the guilt of the present genera
ton and imposing it with crushing
force upon the innocent OF genera lions
vet unborn, He is thinking also of the
injustice and ineNpediency of making
the American people the eXecutioners of
Judgment upon Germany for the bene-
fit of the materially interested nations
The Importance of this view Will be
made obvious to every candid mind by
careful study of Senator KnoX's pow
erful and original speech Yesterday
The thought which he has injected into
the situation is bound to grow, Let
those powers. says Senator Knox in
substance, which demand the excessive
punishment of Germany fer the sake
of what they gain thereby become re-
sponsibc for It's severity and for the
consequences which will result from its
merciless and far-reaching intliCtion. |
Let the United States refuse TO be |
made the agent of these separate in |
tereSts, Let our government reject the |
treaty. covenant and all, Withdraw it. |
self wholly from the mechanism of ex- |
ecution, and proceed. by resolution of |
congress, TO end hostilities simply by |
declaring ms no longer existent the |
status of war which the declaratI ton of |
congress created.