The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-08-01
The shame Of shantung.


The price which President WILSON
paid to Japan for her acquiescence in
his nebulous and shifting scheme of
world reorganization Is written in
three articles of the peace treaty
which relate to Kiao-Chau and the
great Chinese province Of Shantung.
II Is declared in some quarters that
these articles were written In Toxic
md dictated to President WILSON in
Paris at the time when his voices In
the air were becoming unsteady and
his visions on the horizon dim.
International morality is more con.
cerned, We think, In the part which
the President of the United States
played in this bargained outrage on a
friendly and allied nations rights
than in the part Of the Japanese
statesmen at home and in the con-
ference. Japan is pursuing policy
of national expansion and territorial
ACKNOWLEDGMENT which can be CEN
sured, from her own point Of view,
only If equal condemnation is applied
TO the processes by which the British
Empire has grown so mighty. by
which France has extended her pos
sessions In three continents, by which
Italy is becoming a greater nation
and by which a considerable portion
of our own republican territory In the
Southwest and on the Pacific coast
was in the past acquired. Selfish in
terest and economic ambition, some
times in the gulse of manifest destiny,
have controlled such matters since
the world began. 1t Is our belief that
the old motives are operating in many
parts of the globe to-day; and, fur
thermore, that they will continue to
operate, In one way or another, until
the first hour of the millennium
strikes, unless human nature changes
and racial characteristics that have
always been fixed factors disappear
at the bidding of the typewriter or
Of the tongue.
But whatever may be said or
thought of Japan's readiness to seize
the main chance and profit nationally
at the expense Of wronged China,
what is to be thought or said of the
wrong to our own Government and
people II the President who has as
sumed to act at Paris in the name of
our Government and people shall have
brought in fact, for his own purposes,
on China a cruel wrong and on our
Government and people the scarcely
less cruel responsibility fur the con-
summation of the Outrage;
Did or did not the United States
make itself score of years ago the
principal guardian Of tho integrity
of China's domain
Did or did not the United States
Government urge upon China to sever
diplomatic relations with Germany
and to become one Of the Powers as
ISOLATED in the war?
Did or did not the United States
Government convey to the Chinese
Government at that time any assur-
ance, direct or indirect, of protection
Of Chinese interests In the final war
Fettlement?
* the facts answer these three
questions in the affirmative, what is
the position of the United States to.
day II it becomes consenting party
to a treaty which wrongs China for
Japan's benefit. and wrongs her irrep.
arably Notwithstanding vague prom.
ises of revision and rectihcation in
the Greek kalends of the inchoate
League?
What is the position of the Presi.
dent who for the sake of his own
prestige as principal prepayment of the
League does this thingi Is 1t never
q qaestion with him OF what shall