The Marietta journal. (Marietta, Ga.) 1918-1944, 1919-04-11
PARIS COVENANT FOR
LEAGUE OF NATIONS

L
republic of Poland, to set up the
Czecho-slovak state of ten million
inhabitants between Germany ana
Austrla-Hungary, as we'll as the Jugo-
Slav state carved out of Austria and
hungary in the south. We are to fix
new boundaries in the Balkans, with
Rumanla enlarged by Transatlantic
and Bessarabia, and to make an in
ternatlonalized government at Con-
stantlople, keeping ward over the pas
sage between the Black Sea and the
Aegean, and to establish autonomous
domlnlons in Palestine, Syria, Ar
menla and Mesoptamia. This plan
Tor the peace and the reasons for it
were set out with great force and
vision by Senator Lodge in a speech
last January. The chief purpose of
the plan is to take away the POSSIBLE
lty that Germany shall ever again
conceive and carry toward accom-
plishment her dream of the control of
Russia and of Middle European and
Asiatic Empire, reaching from Ham
burg to the Persian Gulf.
Difficulties of Carrying Out Plan
The plan thus requires not only the
establishment but the continued main
tenance of seven new republics in
Europe and several autonomies in
Asia Minor. We are to create twen-
ty nations instead of four; and we
are to carve the new ones out of the
old ones. The peoples of the new
republics will not have had expert
ence in self-government. They are
the children of the League of nations,
as Cuba has been our child. The
league must continue to be a guardi-
ar of their internal stability, if they
are to serve their purpose. Their
natural resentment for past oppres-
sion against the neighboring coun-
tries out of which they have been
carved and the corresponding hatred
of them by the defeated peoples of
those countries will at once produce
controversies innumerable over the
Interpretation of the treaty and it's
application. Even the new countries
as between themselves, with their ma
tural lack of self-restraint and their
indefinite ideas of their powers, have
already come into forced conflict.
Unless there be some means for
aHthoritativelyinterpreting the treaty
and applying it, and unless the power
of the league be behind it to give eff
feet to such Interpretation and appli-
cation, the treaty instead of produc-
ing peace will produce a state of
continued war.
BoIshevism and Its Threat
More than this, in the dark back
ground is the threatening spectre of
Bolshevism, hard, cruel, murderous,
uncompromising, destructive of Chris
tan civilization, militant in pressing
it's hideous doctrines upon other peo-
pies and insidious in its propaganda
among the lowest element in every
country. Against the chaos and the
explosive dangers of Bolshevism,
throughout all the countries of Eu-
rope, League of Nations must be
established to settle controversies
peaceably and to enforce the settle
ment.
League Without United States Futile
IF it be said that the European
nations should unite in league to
maintain these independent states and
settle the difficulties arising between
them and the older Estates in the
sphere of war, as we'll as to resist
Bolshevism, it is sufficient to say that
the withdrawal of the United States
from the League of Nations will weak
en- it immeasuraby. The disinterest-
edness of the United States, its posi-
ton as the greatest Power IN the
world in view of its people and their
intelligence and adaptability, its enor-
NOUS natural resources, and It's po-
tential military power, demonstrated
on the fields of France and Belgium,
make it's membership. in the league
INDISPENSABLE. The confidence OF the
world in it's disinterestedness and IN
its pure democracy will enormously
enhance the prestige and power OF
the leagues earnest desire for peace
with justice.
For the United States to withdraw
would make a league of the other
nations nothing but a return to the
system of alliances and the balance OF
mower with a certain speedy recur-
renee Of war, in which the United
States would be as certainly involved
as it was in this war. The new lnVen-
tions for the destruction of men and
neoples would finally result in world
suicide. while in the interval there
would be a story of progressive com
netition in ornaments, with all their
heavy burdens upon the peoples OF the
nations. already oppressed almost TO
the point of exhaustion. With such
a prospect and to avoid such results
the United States should not hesitate
+o take it's place with the other respon-
eible nations of the world and make
\ the light concessions and assume the
7 LIGHT burdens involved in membership
in the League.