The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-04-22


 A League of Nations should be not merely a "bloc'' for the prevention and punishment of violations of in ternationaI right; it should be com lnunity of mutually trustful nations, endowed with creative power to heal and to restore. Such a League I fear will not be born in our generatto0.
 How will it profit the world if ra- tions who are afterwa rds to form part of the League are first to be destroy ed?. The foundations of the League of his vision should have been laid in the first days of the ar1nistice. The crying of the hour wers clear to see. Cooperation of the Allies with Germany as mandatory Power would have saved the Baltic provinces the Ukraine, and Poland from Bolshe- yik aggression. Central Europe could have been rendered immune from the contagion of Bolshevism by averting the two-fold famine of food and work, which might have been accomplish ed by an International Commission of Trade Unions. The Red Cross SO ciety should have been truly dena- tionalized, and it's representatives, of whatsoever nationality, given free ac- cess to enemy countries to sucCOr the sick and the wounded of all the bel ligerents. The carrying out of these works would have advanced the cause of the League far more swiftly and surely than the long-drawn delIbera- tions in Paris. It would have pre- pared the soil for that frame of mind which President Wilson, on January 22, laid down as just and necessary for a lasting peace as the settlement of disputed boundaries. All this has been arrested by the maintenance of the bIock9de by sea and land.
 President Wilson's Policy.
 President Wilson was no mere Utopist when he declared mo victory to be an indispensable psychological Ere opposition for the req isation of thls frame of mind. No victory of inc Allies; no victory of Germany.
 History has already proved the President to be right.
 If. at the time when the generals on beth sides were still confident of victory in the field. when bctn armies were unct nquered, both fronts un- broken, but both sobered by their sacrificcs-if, at that time, statesmen had been forthcoming for national self-restraint and an international sense of duty sufficient to have en- abled them to resist, the suggestion of Imposing dishonoring peace terms then the atmosphere would have been cleared for the creation of c feeling of mutual compassion; the healing forces of humanity-repress- ed for four years-would, in the first days of the armistice, have been re- leased just as, after a battle, the med ical corps rush to the stricken field.
 I protest that Germanys European enemies are controvening the origina Wilsonian principles by their uncon- formable opposition to the German. Austrian desire for union with Ger many, a union which falls clearly within the meaning of the right o1 self determination.
 On the other hand, and at the same time, they are abetting the Poles 1T the attempt to take forcible posses sion of the disputed areas before th' Congress shall have declared it award. The danger is that the oppon ents of right amongst our enemte will, by their exploitation of the arm istice-by hunger, threats, and brib ery-succeed in creating an obscuret and fictitious European position tt