The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-06-07
LEAGUE is A FACT.

Quite the fairest and most sensible
covenant that has appeared in print
is that by the Christian Science Moni-
tor. which says:
There is one thing the critics of the
League of Nations do not seem to
have observed, and it is this, that a
League of Nations has been formed.
Such a statement is, of course, in the
nature of n paradox, but none the
less its meaning is manifestly simple.
If the critics, who in no way agree
amongst themselves, had had the
drafting of the league in their own
hands they would only have drafted
it differently. and so have passed on
their office of critics to another body
of dissatisfied citizens or critics-the
reader may select his own word. When
the nations of the world come to-
gether to form a league there is likely
to be some slight difference of opin-
ion amongst them. Every one can
not get his own way, and in the end
no one probably gets it. This is dis
tressing to the critics, each of whom
knows exactly what should have been
done, and is willing to admit it. But
the fact remains that a beginning has
been made, and that. as Pythagoras
said centuries ago, the beginning is
half the whole"
There is such thing as being in
too great hurry, and there is such
a thing as attempting to force your
own way on an unprepared world.
Into both of these pitfalls the critics
have fallen. What they do not seem
to see is That the League of Nations
as at present drafted is, perhaps, the
only form in which the league was
possible as a beginning. No doubt.
for instance, the Socialists would
have drawn it differently. But tho
Lord Rosebery assured a highly skep-
teal England, some twenty years ago,
I'VE are all Socialists today" there
are still several nations, including
England, to be convinced of the state
ment. This being so, and 1t most I'M
doubleday is so, the difficulty remains
that tho the socialistic critics NAV be
quite certain, in their own minds, ex-
actly how the league should have been
organized, the one certain thing is
that their form of organization would
not have been acceptable to their op-
ponents and that its acceptance would
only have inspired another series of
criticisms in a different quarter.
1t is, presumably, scarcely neces-
sary to say that the Socialists do not
sum up the whole body of the critics,
but only a fraction of 1t. There are.
to name only a few other of the fac
lions, a dissatisfied section of the
convinced France, and, in the United
States, strongly hostile party in the
senate. No one, surely, believes that
it would have been possible to recon
cile views of the Socialists with those
of the "Old Guard Republicans. or
to induce the British labor men to
see eye to eye with the French Chau-
vinists. Yet these are only a fraction
OF the dissident factions, amongst
whom causes of difference are ques-
tons OF religion and economics, of
politics, of patriotism. ana even of
profit. In spite of this a league has
been organized 1t may be said that
it is nobody's league. and this is quite
likely, but, by treason of this, it NAV
eventually prove to be everybody
league. The world is not going tc
stand still at May. 1919, nor is the
! league. as set up by the Paris peace
council, an ordinance of the Modes
and Persians.