Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-08-30
MR.. KNox'S BUSY BRAIN

The activity of Mr.. Knox's mind is in
disputable. Even among United States
senators his mental agility is conspicu-
Gus.
an order to bring peace between the
United States and Germany" declared
the ex-secretary of state in the Senate
yesterday, at is not necessary that we
shall ratify this treaty. According to
Article CCCCXL of the document itself,
following the date of the first process
verbal, to be drawn up after three of the
principal allied powers and Germany
have signed up, the treaty will come
into force for the high contracting par
ties who have ratified it."
This, of course, excepts the United
States if we turn it down. The point has
not escaped Mr.. Knox's keen legal pene-
tration-far from it, His contention that
we can have peace by doing nothing is
Immediately followed by the demand that
Congress do something and declare a
peace on its own hook.
There is no refuge from such reason
ing unterrifed by what humber minds
might be inclined to describe as para
doxes masterfully dovetailed in a single
stately paragraph.
With a dialectic skill, implying a
stinging rebuke to lesser intelligences,
Mr.. Knox maintains that "France never
forgot or forgave Alsace-Lorraine." If
that fact has hitherto eluded US, it will
not do so again. Now we know that seiz-
ing territory by force is a dangerous
business, just how dangerous is revealed
in the sage's passionately expressed de-
sire that 1--WE ought not to accept cession
of German territory" Risky as it is to
reach a conclusion without consulting
Mr.. Knox, the rash public persists in the
belief that Alsace was German territory
from 1870 to 1918. Mr.. Knox, if not fair,
is not anything. He exposes the crime
of turning over French territory to Ger
many and the crime of taking anything
away from Germany. Can the triumph
of fair play be surpassed?
In sense it can, for our solon pledges
his faith in Germany's destiny to become
"a great free people as they had been
a great monarchical nation" while at
the same time acutely foreseeing that
with the treaty enforced the German
people will no more cease to plot and
plan to recover their high estate than did
Satan plunged in the abysmal depths of
hell. Imperative indeed is scrupulous
consideration of treaty decreeing the
fate of nation at once liberty-loving
and satanic. Only a master brain can
grasp its implication.
And unhesitating as ever in analytic
zeal, the senator from this state depicts
the virtues of "our own citizens of Ger
man ancestry, stalwart, freedom-loving,
patriotic" An occasional bomb or so or
an incidental plot were uncharacteristic.
Everybody who heeds Mr.. Knox must
recognize that.
The numerous other points made are
what might have been anticipated from
statesman of his caliber. The league
of nations is roundly condemned, but the
President is urged "to convene the ma
tons of the world together" The treaty
is not enforcible, and naturally, therefore,
its enforcement would be basically incon-
sistent with its nature.
The new course of history through
which the pact champions would lead us
| is "untried." The terror Of tomorrow
has seldom been more emphatically ex-
pressed. 1t is Immediately clear that
none but tried novelties should be our
| goal.
The angles from which Mr.. Knox views
an argument are infinite. The possessor
of brain so elastic and alert does not
need to care for dull consistency.