The evening Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1918-1920, 1919-03-11


belief and convictions strong enough
so that an hour of skillful oratory
does not stampede them. Brother
Hindley will probably wax sarcastic
over this chap in Caledonia county,
take him to task and advise him to
go back writing fiction. But this
chap over here in Caledonia county
has unfortunately been out in a sec
ton of the world where he has seen
his country in perspective and also
seen the glaring need for just this |
sort of an international organization |
now proposed. And he has returned
home strong for League of Nations
of the right sort-without being |
any less the American. He has
reason to believe League of Nations
will work; that the times are ripe |
for it; that the only folks who will
spoil it and explode it are a few folks !
who only see their Americanism from
a Washington committee-room angle !
and not from the broader, vaster
standpoint of international welfare.
Now we have no bone to pick with
Brother Greene. He has as much
right to his convictions as we have
to ours. And he's walking on safe
territory when he calls up Washing
tons farewell address and the naked
breasts of the Concord Minute-men
and the glory of the Yankee battle
eagle. He is furthermore honest
and earnest in his belief and we give
him credit for knowing every last
play in the Congressman's role in
lieu of which he will undoubtedly be
our next senator. But if Congress
man Greene or any other Yer
monter could only get away from the
grindstone of their own concentrated
Americanism for few months and
out of his big coterie of herowor-
shippers, we are wondering ii 1t
wouldn't dawn upon him after getting
the other fellows viewpoint, that he
might be bit behind the times. For
the League of Nations is coming as
sure as the Lord made little apples
and all his oratory among his admir-
ing constituency, cannot stop it. The
fact that the world is cropping out
after some such organization implies
the crying need for its existence in
concrete form. And the crying need
means that the times are ripe for it.
All that remains is the modus
operandi.
Greene bases his contention that we
should keep out of the League of
Nations on the same old threadbare
theory that the world is exactly where
it was in Washington's day; that
there is still George VII on the
throne of England; that Europe is
still a handful Of weazoned little old
men wearing decorations; that the
oceans on two sides of US are still
walls of isolation built around US;
that war is glorious and that good
comes from it; that to join with other
nations in the League will mean that
the tail can easily wag the dog; that
humanity has not yet had its
stomachful of war; that everyone
who dares raise his voice in approval
of get-to-gether of the nations is
guilty of treason and is a hyphen-
ated American playing England's
game, and all the rest of the old re-
dictionary stuff we have been fed
upon in our Memorial Day addresses
since we were kids around the old
swimming-hole with the yellow dog
running off with our trousers.
There is no space here for the list
of direful calamities that would
happen to US the moment we put our
signature to the League of Nations.
He wants to know what mother
would send her son to settle some
squabble in the Balkans, forgetting
two things: that if we have fair and
square League of Nations there will
be no Balkan squabble to solve :.
at least that takes human lives to
solve :. and secondly that for
lack of a League sixty-six thousand
mothers have just given their sons
to die in a European struggle over
a squabble between Austria and
Serbia. He wants to know if we are
going to play tyrannical, self-seeking
England's "game" in world politics,
forgetting that tyrannical, self-seek-
| III 1HCI1ly IOoPONoo Wills
moment is a far freer country to live
in for the individual in many respects
than America; that tyrannical, self
seeking England went to war and lost
four million men to see that justice
was done to raped Belgium and hard
pressed France; that self-seeking
England's navy was solely responsible
for Congressman Greene performing
his job in Washington at this moment
instead of holding it down somewhere
out around Kansas City or Denver.
He treats of England as a den of
iniquity and oppression from which
we fled to escape persecution instead
of remembering how those English
+ kept July 4th last year and what
Lloyd George said on that occasion,
and that England and America, stand
ing together, can tell all the world
to go to hatch and boss the whole
gosh blamed universe as they please
. which they will do if the COM
, mon people of the two countries have
anything to say about it. He says q
few votes at the council table over
| at Versailles, might dictate to US
/ whether or not we could intervene in