New-York tribune., 1919-02-14
A Time To Be Honest

Why not be honest? Few have been.
Colonel Roosevelt indulged in the luxury,
but others have so desired to be wise,
have been so afraid of indiscretion, that
they have joined the game Of "Fooling
Your Neighbour" Your neighbor could
not be trusted to digest verities, might
be excited into sin against national
unity. In soliloquy we have been frank
but public discourse has been on the
theory that fact becomes non-fact if un-
mentioned.
On the screen has been projected
shadow dance of words Rhetorical
phrases have been a shroud to COM
mon sense Logomachy has been substi-
tuted for genuine conflicts of ideas.
Who wants to be rated a caviller or
nagger? A claque has howled down
those who raised voices in intelligent
and constructive criticism.
The mood has been foolish because
few persons were privately deceived
The country has sensed all along what
is meant and implied by phrases such as:
Neutral in thought as we'll as in deed"
Too proud to fight" peace without
victory" "What's the war about?" He
Kept US out of war and the like. Sure
ly, support of men does not require
acclaim of them as 100 per cent fight
when notoriously so per cent wrong.
Any appeal for reverence that for
merly could be advanced in behalf of
The proposition that publication is an
integral part of creation (that the world,
for example, was not existent until
Genesis reported the occurrence) lost all
force when the armistice was signed.
Then it became obviously desirable to
abandon the Delphic form of utterance.
A firm settlement, it was plain, could
not be built on foundations of ambiguity.
Yet an i'll habit is not easy to discard,
and since the assembling of the peace
conference an insincere parade of the
not-so has mechanically gone on.
The public utterances of the spokes-
man of our delegation contributed lit
tie to clarifcation. He whipped the filly,
Glittering Generality, around the course
again, but plainly the nag was winded
and new mount was needed Clemen-
ceau was seemingly the only one in
Paris with sufficient confidence in demo-
cratic methods and in his own ideas to
display his wares openly.
By inference it is perhaps possible to
build up some conception of present con-
ditions. The President appears to have
gone to Paris not so much to get peace
league with teeth to it as to argue that
our Constitution and our public opinion
forbade the participation Of America in
the responsibilities of such league. But
great expectations have been aroused,
and he was willing to have it under
stood that the wicked imperialists of
Europe had hamstrung the great project.
Whereupon the aforesaid wicked i'm
perialists, averse to taking blame, re-
spectfully labored to pass the buck back.
The repassing was seemingly achieved
when Clemenceau said in the interview
which brought on the noise: France
will gladly join league which has en-
forcing power. Will American"
The interrogatory is pertinent. Will
America JOIN! VIII the President stake
his political future on the results of
a struggle to secure American adher-
ence? If he says yes, II he abandons
ambiguity. he will find many with him
not hitherto with him. On the other
hand, il merely another barrage of
words is being laid down and no over
the-top infantry is to charge through
the smoke, the imposing agitation has
been but a feint.