The daily Alaska citizen., 1919-10-18
ANOTHER OUT OF THE WAY

day voted down senator < Lodge pro- posed Shantumg amendment 1t scuttled one of the most dangerous attempts yet made to scuttle the treaty of peace The proposal never did amount to anything else but that it never could have accomplished anything else. And it must be an nmiStakablc fact that everyone of those senators Whc voted for its adoption realized that its adoption would destroy the treaty as fal as it concerned the United States.
 Some of the senators voted for 1t be cause of that very fact Men like Borah Fall, Johnson, Knox and PoindeXter who have not hesitatcd to declare that the treaty should be defeated and a new ano separate treaty made with Germany. 9th CTS, realizing that the amendment was doomed to defeat, probably voted for 1t II order that they might say that they wanted to do the right thing by China. These mel voted for record and not because they eX pected or really desired to see it pass
 If there had been any earthly chance of accomplishing anything by the passage besides the destruction of the treaty, there might have been an excuse for a favorable vote. But anyone with knowledge of the situation must know that all the amend mcnts that the senate foreign relations committee could write between now anC the end of time could not alter the present status of the Shantung concessions. Ger tainly China deserved to have them back but there was and is no way the United States can get them back for her save by war Had the amendment been passed, i would not alter the ratification of the treaty by France, England, Italy and Ger many. And if the last named nation should be prot to meet the United States in new peace conference, no agreement entered in to there could affect the Shantung clause of the Versailles treaty. The Shantung concessions are no longer Gemany's t( dispense of and no amount of recognition O China $ rights to them by the United StateE senate can alter the fact that for the pres ent they have been transferred to Japan This fact must have been patent to those senators who voted for the amendment
 It must have been recognized by Sena tor Lodge when he proposed it. And know ing 1t he must have had a purpose in it> proposal. Senator Williams referring tC Lodges attitude toward the whole treaty and his amendment declared on the flOO1 of the senate chamber: ''I am not foo enough to believe that the senator iron Massachusetts was fool enough to believe that he did not know what he was doing I accuse him-and if I am mistaken I an sorry-of wanting to defeat the league o1 nations and the treaty of peace, and want ing to do it indirectly if he could not do il directly; and under all the plausible utter ances of that report l think I see that in tent sticking out between the lines all ovel this 'Prussian' report. It seems to me tha the author was attempting, deliberately and with ulteriOr motive, to make people our late associates in war-angry, with in tent to force them to defeat the league Japan has been insulted, the council has been msulted, Germany is politely told that the only thing between her and the utmost degree of humiliation that can be inflicted upon her now, after she is defeated and or her knees and holding up her hands and begging for peace, is the physical endur ance that it takes to go from Berlin tc Paris.
 Whether out of political and personal hatred toward President Wilson, or fo1 some other purpose, Senator Lodge, when he introduced the Shantung amendment had for his object the defeat of the treaty