Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1919-09-19
DEFIANT RECKLESSNESS.

DEFIANT RECKLESSNESS.
sThe other nations will take us on
our own terms, for without US their
league is wreck and all their gains
from a victorious peace are imperil-
ed"
These words from the report OF
the senate committee on foreign re-
lations submitting amendments to
treaty, words of terrible import and
colossal insolence, will be read with
profound regret by every American
whose eyes are raised above the
strifes of party, with deep pain by
every friend of America in those for
eign lands with which we are newly
come into relations of closer friend
ship. They are not words spoken
thoughtlessly in the heat of debate.
They are part Of a report prepared
with deliberation, carefully considered
and approved by the republican ma
jority of the committee, Mr.. McCum-
Der being the only majority member
who withholds his assent, and they
are submitted to the senate and pub
lished to the whole world.
There can be no misunderstanding
the meaning of the sentence we have
quoted. The republican authors of
the report declare that in the attempt
to force upon other nations the
treaty amendments they have franz
ed they are willing to wreck the
league of nations, the worlds only
safeguard against the recurrence Of
destructive war; they are willing to
put in peril the "gains from vic
torious peace" that has cost millions
Of lives and an expenditure of $780,
000,000,000. They have the full
courage of their hardihood, they are
inflexible in their purpose, for their
amendments do wreck the league.
Even though they should be accepted
by all the other nations the league
would be manned and nerveless
pact, its very heart plucked out, the
ultimate sanction and power set up
for the enforcement Of it's resolves
altogether destroyed. This report of
the foreign relations committee, if
the senate shall act in the sense Of
that shocking passage, sets the world
back hundred years. 1t does destroy
the gains of victory, it does annihi-
late the league of nations, it repudia-
ties not only all that was won by the
war but the declared purpose for
which the nations poured out their
blood and treasure. The allies and
the United States took up arms to
check the mad ambition of Germany,
to destroy her dangerous military
power, they fought her until that
purpose was achieved They fought
that nations, that men might be free,
that the world might be governed by
law and justice, not by the will of
autocrats, and in the peace council
they drew up the covenant of ma
tons to safeguard what they had
won at such immense cost. All is
sacrificed, all is lost, if these reck-
less men of the foreign relations COM
mittee have their way.
The passage we have quoted, a
brazen disclosure of the defiant spirit
IN which the committee prepared its
report, is of such overlapping import
ance that comment upon details seems
hardly necessary. That passage
controls the whole docuent The re-
port declares that the treaty is "the
most important subject that ever
came before the senate Of the United
States" Yet though the happiness OF
mankind and the destinies of nations
are involved, the committees report
asks the senate to treat the matter
purely as though it were question
OF party interest. The report speaks
Of "a solemn public duty" it declares
that the United States can best serve
the cause OF peace 1sby not permitting
herself to be fettered by the dictate.
OF other nations or immersed Of
entangled in all the broils and con