Shenandoah herald. [volume] (Woodstock, Va.) 1865-1974, 1919-02-28
FRIDAY FEBRUARY IS, 1919
A SIRATEGtST WHO
HAS THEM C'0RNFRED

DScu driven INTO d COInel Dy HIS
master in strategy, and that
there was no way out except by
surrender.
Something Of the same sort
has happened to the enemies of
League of Nations. They wake
up now to find that they have
leen cornered hv a master STRAIT
egist. And they forthwith fall
to rearing and charging and at
tempting to break out of the
corner into which they have
ecu Unanswered, when it is evil
dent to everybody else that there
is no way out except by the Won
H 'denburg route.
Tue President has inclosed
them between the sharp horns
of a deadly dilemma. TO
r ject the League Of Nations
3 lleme is to declare in favor Of
a Jew war of nations and of
years OF grinding preparation
for that new war. To accept it
s TO admit that they have been
lacking III sense and vision. But
this is just tile situation to which
the Wllsonian strategy has re-
duced them. 1t is a choice be-
tween the maintenance of the
old system of interus tioual rela-
tious, i'll which nothing is GER
tain but heavy ornaments and
ultimate war, aud a League +
Nations which will reduce Il
T., satellites Of a conflict to Il
minimum. What is clear beyond
any thing else i'll the world just
now is that the supreme demand
o mankind is for the establish
ment of peace system. Every
other proposition, natioual or III
teruatioAal, is minor PROPOSE
ton. Everything else hinges
and depends on that.
This is the great dominant
fac with which Wilson has driv-
Ell the antipeace leaguers into
corner. Beside it the Monroe
Doctrine and constitutional tech
uicalitieS dwiudle into ins1gnifi-
GAUGE. The arguments of the
critics of the peace league-for
that is what the League of Ma
tious is-might lave seemed un-
all ,werable before 1914. Now
ev are voices from before the
fl I'd. The logic of that day
and the logic of this day-thoug Ii
separated i'll time by only four
vears-are as distant from each
ether as the logic of the day Of
Julius Caesar and the logic of the
d ~ Of Marshal Fccll. I'VE emerge
FIR a superlative catastrophe
looking upon All abs olutely new
world. The disaster does not
admit Of the old remedies and
the old safes yards. Things that
a piled four years ago do not fit
tie present case. We may not
ike it, but it is idle to shut our
e es on the facts. We must
either fall back on the Old costly
aAd bloody methods. or we must
go forward and plant ourselves
on higher aud firuer ground.
That is the sole choice. and
there can be no doubt that the
people of the United States will
not permit the Senate to choose
the old road that leads to war.
They will insist that trial shall
at least be made of the new plan.
This is the reason why Wilson
has the whip-hand Of the anti
league insurgents. They have
no hope to offer, no scheme Of
cure to propose. Twenty mill
lion men have beer killed or
manned, nearly everv home in
Europe is flying the black ban
ner of grief, every Europ can ma
ton has been Frustrated by in
losses, or will be bur
d ned fer generations by III
M -nse debts !; and vet we are
kOl lHdt VIC uiuSt 1S MOI { ali llllS
ani face the future with the old
recipes for ruin.
Senators Borah, Reed an the !,
rest Of the old-timers, who do
not know there has been a war,
may continue to plunge aud buck.
but it will have no effect OIL te
result. They will have to SUI.
nit finally, because the strate-
sist has them in corner. Their
arguments, reduced to their es
,e nee, are simply arguments in
Favor of the old uucurbed aud
unlimited system of international
Jeligerency and perpetual peril.
And ~ between Wilson offering
eel D0~.l. 1oea.: