New-York tribune., 1919-04-22
After the League, What?


tors. It was blown to a great size for
time; it lies now, pricked balloon, on
the doorstep Of the Quai d'Orsay. He is
a shortsighted statesman who would
waste time to kick it. 1t has failed ut
j terly of it's grandiose purpose.
The revised covenant may or may not
survive as a Hague tribunal and we'll
meant gesture of internationalism and
be adopted by the nations. When the
full text of the revised covenant has
been published it will be time enough
Ito decide whether or not the arbitral
features of it's charter can justify the
acceptance. 1t may still be so inept and
conglomerate and contradictory as to
compel rejection. Or it may seem an
unobjectionable minor aid to interna-
tional understanding worth preserving.
That will be as the facts fall.
But, whatever the decision shall be, the
league, as means of enforcing peace,
has pershed 1t never possessed any suffi-
cient authority to halt war; and what
ever vestige of authority it once had has
been removed. When another Germany
bursts across a frontier the league can
not command a single rifle or brandish
single sword 1t cannot even reach
Judgment unless all nine nations on the
council can agree; and, as The Spring.
field Republican, stanch advocate of the
league, has said can undue emphasis
on the principle of unanimity would
wreck a society of angels at the millen-
& mum, let alone league of nations in
r 1920 A. d. The clauses of arbitration
3 alone remain, whether more or less eff
F 'cient than under the Hague treaties is
Il not yet clear.
That is the fact at Paris, and the
+ sooner the peoples of America and the
{ Allies realize it the better. The fate of
the league has become an insignificant
and petty concern. The real issue, the
vastest issue that ever faced an assem-
/ blage of men, the fate of France, Of
civilized Europe, remains untouched, un-
solved.
For four months ''idealism" has wres-
tied with facts at the Quai d'Orsay and
sought to create a vast political ma
chine from the sheer stuff of theory
I Instead of taking the alliance of .civiliza-
Il ton born of the war and establishing il
81 for slow evolution in the future, the
II effort was to break with all the past
8 and set up suddenly a Utopia coexten
Is sive with mankind. The personal faults
4 the greatnesses and pettinesses of tht
4 conference, the episodes and blunderi
& that marked the rise and fall of the
E league, are past and gone There viii
be an abundance of years in which to ti7
personal responsibility. The Trbun,
conceives that to-day the peril is to,
urgent, the time too brief, to permit o
such criticism now. We ask only tina
our readers, that the American people
4 face the facts as they are, and that the
! realize what was attempted and wha
has failed, and that, thus realizing, the
set their faces toward the grave tas
remaining
| That task is the safeguarding Of civ
| iizaton, 80 far as human wisdom ca
! now achieve that end. Not the abclitio
| tof war, for that we conceive to be be
iyond the present capacity Of humans
But an organization Of the civilize
forces Of the world in such fashion q
<to limit the chances Of var and in tn
I eevent Of war TO make the defeat Of bai
/ ibarism certainty.
In a measure, the successful perform
ance Of that task has already been cor
xpromiged at Paris The world has bee
/ ' led astray after false hope Relyin
upon a prospective league Of natior
! & with power and capacity, arrangement
4 have been made which now become pr
/ postcrous and dangerous We must rca
tize this fact frankly and fully. w
J must see that with the collapse Of tt
/ Foundation the whole unnatural supe
structure falls to the ground.
The sum Of the catastrophe at Paris
that intcrnationaiisn has failed. n;
tionalism must take its place. If II
world has, indeed, learned this lcsso
from the three months Of folly and bc
II / ering at the Quai d'Orsay, even this cos
Igy and dangerous waste will have bee