Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-11-29

that some quite human Americans with
| certain business interests that might be
indecently exposed to foreign competi-
| ton were not taking perfect view of
the situation and did want tariffs These
reactionarieS were nll going to vote the
| Republican ticket. So Mr.. Martin and
! Mr. Hitchcock both wrote to the Prcsi
dent quite modcstly and asked him what
point three did mean anyhow; in the
perfect future would there be any tar
! ms; question something like the qucs-
tion about marriages in heaven. The
answer was that there would be; the
first words which Indicated that some
thing Of the present was going to carry
over into the perfect time to come.
Now one more suggested or inferred
thing, It will be the last, for this is
going to be an article and not book.
| ] refer to the ''magnnnimous peace"
that we were going to make with Ger
many. OF course, in world out of
which war had disappeared and where
SeltShness had been diminished and the
brotherhood of man had been realized.
naturally you had to treat the defeated
enemy like an crring brother. Probably
he must sit at the peace table and help
write the peace himself
And bearing on this hope there was
again the parallel-thc deadly parallel
of the United States. This coming
international organization. with such
| adaptations as n superhpated imaginn
tion would see were necessary, would
be the United States of the World. Re
member how we set an example to all
mankind in letting the South after the
Civil War back into the Union without
punishment of any kind The very
thing Apparently the trick--and
use the word without an evil intent
Of setting n big movement going is to
implant one new big belief into men s
hcarts-like the belief in n world so
organized as to make war impossible
and thus change the believers standard
Cf cred1ncc. Even the idea of treating
Germany as the South had been treated
by the North did not present Difficult
ties to the Imagination in those days.
We may have thought that we should
have trouble to get Europe to go that
far on the road of brotherhood with us.
but we did not reject the idea, at least
as an aim of our President. on the
ground of its being prcposterous. Wait
before you cXclaim out against this.
II is now several months since our whole
standard of beliefs ranged alongside the
big belief in the warless world. Now ]
such beliefs or suggestions as this last.
President Wilson made speech in
New York on September 81. 1918, on
the occasion of the opening of the
fourth Liberty loan, in which he said
the price of peace ''is impartial justice
in every item of the settlement no
matter whose interest is crossed: and
not only impartial justice. but also the
satisfaction of the several peoples whose
fortunes are dealt with. The
impartial justice metcd out must in
volvc no discrimination between those
to whom we wish to be just and those
to whom we do not wish TO be just"
Reading Under Illusions
Read now in the light of what hap
pened in Paris those word do not seem
to mean much no words do. So many
words have been said and so many ac
tionS done, and there is so much dis
Dute about reconciling the two that we
have grown stale upon phrases. But in
September. 1918. YOU could not read
them in the light Of Paris; you read
them rather under the illusions of a
powerful emotion in which all your
standards of belief had been upset by
making you believe in something bigger
than anything ever experienced before.
least | did. am not sure that Presi
dent Wilson did not speak them in that
spirit Of cXatation.
The mob influences Its leader just as
the leader influences the mob. The
thing is reciprocal. had curious ex-
pCricnce with respect to those very
words. or apparently to me, with re
spect to them, which throws a great
light on the exalted faith in the league
of nations with which this country, or
part of it, went to Paris, a faith that
was bound to be defeated because i'm
possible. | am the Washington CORE
spondent Of the EVENING PUBLIC
LEDGER. Ten days or a fortnight after
these words were said ] was talking
with a man who was the Presidents in
innate associate in the conduct of the
war. He was as likely to know at that
time what the President was thinking
upon themes like these as would have
been Secretary McAdoo, Secretary
Baker, Mr.. Hoover, Judge Brandeis,
Mr.. Tumuty, Mr.. Vance Mccormick,
Mr.. Baruch, Secretary Daniels, Mr.. |
House, General March, Secretary Ian
sing. Mr. George Creel. I mention at
random the men, big and little, who had
then frequent access to the White
House.
Now. remember the words: "No |
discrimination between those to whom
we wish to be just and those to whom
we do not wish to be just" Those to
whom we do not wish to be just we're
clearly the Germans. This intimate as
sociate of the Presidents said to me
suddenly, apropos of nothing in partic
ular, Our standard of treating Ger
many in making peace with her must |
be our treatment of the South after the
Civil War. Wilson must be free from
any kind of European entanglementS in |
order to enforce that standard of jus
tice and humanity upon the Allies. We
shall all have to live together after the
war in the way the North has had to
live with the South since the war"
This man was not a sentimentalist. He
was not pro German, far from it. There
was no special reason why his mind
should have run upon this particular
problem or running upon it should have
reached this particular conclusion.
| thought then, remembering the
speech just quoted, that he was re-
hecting the way the mind of the Presi-
dent was operating at the moment. ]
am still inclined to think so. / who
was here in Washington took this con-
ception of peace making seriously. He
who was much nearer the President
took 1t much more seriously, / cir
culated it. i don't know how the coun-
try took 1t. Perhaps the seriousness
with which it was taken varied in
vcrsely as the square of the distance
from the White House. think so. But
it is easy to see from this instance how
an exaggerated idea spread and per
haps to see where it centered.
Idea of International Sgperstate
Take another example; Where did the