The weekly Alaska citizen., 1919-11-03
DISCUSSION OF ARTICLE TEN AND ANSWERS TO THE cRiTI.
 cIsMS OF HIS OPPONENTS


 President Wilson, in the course of his trip turnout the country, has pre- scented the meaning of the peace treaty and the covenant of the league of nations to the American people and the reasons why they should be ratified by the United States very clearly. So momentous are the ques- tions involved that the Empire has made extracts from his various Paci- tic coast addresses, as they have been furnished by the mail service of the Associated Press, that it's readers may get comprehensive idea of the whole question, as the President of the united States views it.
 AS OF GENERAL PROPOSITION
 treQuently the President called att tention to the circumstances that the united States was the first nation to submit her grievances to the judg- ment of the world. She did that in the preamble of the Declaration of independence, wherein it is declared:
 When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with an other, and to assume among the pow CTS of earth the separate and equal anu NetuIe's God entitled them, de- cent respect for the opinions Of man Kind that they should declare the causes which impel them to the sep aratiOn." This plain acknowledgment or the necessity of having the ap- prOval of the world is followed by a recitation of some self evident" truths of government, and the fact that the King of Great Britain had disregarded them for the purpose of the establishment Of an absolute tyranny" over the states, and then SOlACo IlC Au1 tACA 0PRCoA IO IAC opinions of mankind: ITO prove this let facts be submitted to candid world"
 He declared that the league of na- tons provides the means through which all peoples, influential and non-inteuntial," may appeal to the judgment of mankind. He declared The leaders of the American Revo- iuLion now state the causes which have led them to separate them selves from Great Britain. America was the first to set the example, the first to admit that right and justice and even the basis of revolution are a matter upon which mankind are entitled to form judgment"
 We cannot desert humanity" he said. We are the trustees of hu- manity. l cannot conceive a motive adequate to hold men off from their great enterprise"
 America is under an overwhelm- ing moral compulsion to accept the peace treaty." President Wilson de- clared, because it was drawn up on American specifications and marked the worlds acceptance or AmerI- cas principles. Even Germany has been forced to accept these princi- ples." said the President, and now some men are proposing that the United States herself repudiate them."
 And so the moral compulsion among us, among us who at the critical stage of the war saved the world and who threw in our fortunes with all the forward looking people of the world-the moral compulsion upon us to stand by and see it thru is overwhelming.
 We cannot now turn back. We made the choice in April 1917. We cannot with honor revert it now.
 There is only one conceivable way to do that, and that is by means of a league of nations. The very description is a definition of a league of nations, and the only thing that we can debate now is whether the nations of the world having met in a universal congress and formulated a covenant as the basis for a league of nations we are going to accpet that or insist upon another. 1 don't find any man anywhere. rash or bold enough to say that he does not desire a league of nations. l only find men here and there saying that they do not desire this league of na- tions. And I want to ask you to re- fleet upon what that means. When this covenant was drawn up in it's first form, had the occasion, for me very happy occasion, to return for few weeks to this country, in March last. brought the covenant in its first shape; submitted 1t in an intimate conference to the foreign relations committee of the senate ot United States, or rather to the two committees of the two houses the foreign relations of the committee and the committees on foreign affairs