The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1919-08-27
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
TODAY

The longer the senate holds off IL
the signing Of the league of nations
covenant attached to the peace treaty
the more certain are the American
people becoming that to have rushed
blindly into the acceptance of such
IRENE folly but gross crime against
this nation. 1t is interesting and IL
Illuminating to review the successive
changes of mind of the citizens OF
this country with respect to the merits
of the proposed league, as the block
ing of its adoption proceeds week by
week in the foreign relations COM
mittee.
FIRST ATTITUDE TOWARD LEAGUE.
When the league was first proposed
by the president of this country while
he was still in France, there was a
disposition on at least a very large
part, if not all, of our American citi-
zens to accept the suggestion with
complete satisfaction and an urgent
longing for its immediate adoption.
So crushed were the people of this
country by the accumulated horrors
of war, so appalled, and grief torn were
they by the loss of thousands of Amer
lean boys, and so burdened were they
by the sense of the huge debt piled
up against the future of the national
treasury that they were ready to seize
with avidity upon any scheme that
offer an absolute guarantee against
the possibility of any future wars.
Even parents who had no sons to give
or who had held back their sons from
the shadow of danger in selfish self
protection were generous enough to
shudder at the idea that any other
generation of splendid young manhood
should go down to it's cruel death on
a battlefield. That any other monster
should have the opportunity to engage
with impunity in such a wholesale
and iniquitous slaughter as that plan
ned and executed by William Hohen-
zollern struck and still strikes the
American mind as calamity not to
be borne and contingency to be pro-
vided against by every power vested i
in the legislative and executive
branches of our government.
HUMAN NATURE UNCHANGED.
If the league could have achieved |
what was first claimed for it by the
president of these United States, if it /
could, with any degree of good faith,
have promised this or any other ma
ton that its citizens were guaranteed
future exemption from taking up
arms, the people of this country who
favored the league would have been
amply justified in their endorsement
Of it and in their desire to pledge the
United States to signing it. But the
millennium has not come. Human be-
ngs are what they are and, what is
more significant, they are what they
nave been, at least to large extent.
As long as we need in this peace-lov-
ng country a court of the justice of
he peace. probate court, a district :
:ourt, federal court, and United I
States supreme court, the fallacy of
that people are going to live
in peace and amity is ]
constantly exposed. There is no pros !
,ect that wars will not occur in future.
In fact we seem to have very good
Material for starting several in num-
YER of different places right at the
resent time. So obvious did this pros
ect become that the preseiden receded :
rom his first position and even be-
ore he returned to this country he
ave out the statement that the league
yould not prevent wars but would
lake them very difficult to start and
impossible to prosecute very far.
PRESIDENTS VIEWS RESPECTED 7
AS has been the habit of this people :
n the past few years during period !.
hen war time conditions seemed to =
.mand patriotic support of the ma :
ms head in almost any measure he =
light propose, the public expressed
self as in favor of the league. If the
'esident said it would be a panacea al
en- a panacea the people were ready q
believe it would be. s
ROPEAN DIPLOMACY TREACHEROUS 90 80
But successive weeks and open dis We