The weekly Alaska citizen., 1919-10-06
ISOLATION POSSIBLE


  Shortly after the majority report of the senate foreign relations committee had been made on the floor of the senate. Senator Lodge, chairman ot that committee defended the reservations and amendments proposed by that report giving as one of his strongest req sons his "Amcricanisn" He declared:
 Il will go as far as any ono man in world service, but the first step in world service is the maintenance of the United States. You may call me selfish, if you will, conservative or reactionary, but an American I was born, an American have remained all my life.
 Il can never be anything else but an American, and l must think of the United States first, and when I think of the United States first in arrangement like this I am thinking of what is the best for the world, for If the United States fails the best hopes of mankind fails with it. 1 have never had but one allegianCe-I cannot divide it now"
 Turnout the speech of the senator he overlooked the fact that the chief achievement o1 the war was the Unacceptable entanglenent ot America The United States, no matter what 1t might desire, has no choice in this matter. Germany dragged it into the con- tlict; and says the Philadelphia Public Ledger, "The iron necessity of making sure that our boys did not die in vain letters Us firmly to the task of fighting on with tie forces that seek to bring ordered peace out of tumlltuous and terror-ridden chaos"
 Answering Senator Lodges assertion of iAmercaniSm, the editor of the Ledger makes the following comments No wonder the gal leries cheered. Who could say otherwise? We are all Americans first But does the senator believe that America would now be worse off ii she had been "entangled' in league of nations during the summer of 1914 which would have been able to tell the Hapsburg government of Austria Hungary that its ulti- matum to Serbia was war-provoking act which must be withdrawn if it did not desire to encounter the condemnation of the league? Does he believe if Germany and Austria had known at that time that any wanton precipi- tation of war on their part would bring into the field against them automatically Britain, France and Russia, but Italy and the United States as we that they would have rushed to meet their fate? The same thing would be true if it had been Russia that then thot of lifting the lid off he'll" The "union of civilized nations" with "a controlling force behind the maintenance of peace" which Sen ator Lodge so cloquently envisaged at Union college, would have kept the peace.
 l And America whicll we must think of first would have been richer today by tens of thousands of ''dead," hundreds of thous- ands of "wounded' and billions of dollars. We paid big price to learn the lesson that we live in the world, and no senator can sing sweetly enough to cause us to forget for moment so long as America does not lend her sanity and power to the proper control of what Mr. Lodge calls so contemptuously "every controversy and conflict on the face of the globe," she abstains at the cost of risk ing the life of every American lad who leaves his home this morning with a bright face turned toward the days duty or pleasure. * k
 "We cannot stand aloof. We cannot shirk the risks Immediately greater risks will men ace us if we do We must pool our brains and our hearts, and our strong right arms. We must join the forces of prevention as well as the forces which subsequently, fight the flames on dizzy ladders. We cannot afford to split hairs and chop logic cover definitions of the > Monroe doctrines or what are or are not do- mestic questions. * * s #''
 THE UNIFORM.
 }, Before the war man wearing the uni ,( 1UoS borrod from ,1uhlic Ua fl nrinUS hnca1Sn