The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1919-02-01
LET DISCUSSION BE FREE

The Tribune believes 1t can detect quite clearly an elIOi
on the part of certain close friends of the president to charg
all those who fail or neglect to approve in advance every dip
;lomatic move of the chief spokesman-or rather the sol
,spokesman-of America at the peace conference, with a dis
position to deny to him the support to which he is entitled.
Intelligent discussion of schemes of international re
arrangement not yet disclosed is impossible. 1t is certal
only that no one can intelligently approve a program he reali
knows nothing about. and no one knows anything clearl
about what President Wilson has in mind. Eloquent general
tiles in favor of the true, the good and the beautiful, Will
commendable in themselves, do not constitute a program, an
the people have discovered that sometimes disagreeabl
things are put over to the music of agreeable phrases.
George B. Lockwood. writing on this subject in the Ma
tional Republican, voices, we believe, the view OF a gref
many Americans when he says:
An effort is being made to put the republican party
in the light of opposing any movement looking to the
removal from the world of the menace of war-Of mil
itarism and navalism. 1t is the same effort, made by
the same men, that succeeded in putting over on the
American people the biggest confidence game of mod
en times in the political campaign of 1916. Then the
people were told that the policies of President Wilson,
the policies of unpreparedness and note writing, would
keep us out of war. They were told this at a time
when no one knew so wei. as the politicians who coined
the phrase this was absolutely untrue. The claim made
by many republican leaders that the policies of the adj
ministration, instead of keeping us out of war, would
inevitably drive us into war. unprepared for it, fell upon
deaf ears. Because the policies of the administration
were said to be insurance against war, millions of WE'LL
meaning voters anxious for peace, believed they would
guarantee peace. The result is well known.
If the program, whatever it may be, President Will
son is talking about, meant in its practical effect what
his champions say it does, then, of course, every we'll
meaning person would be for it; the introduction of
peace on earth, good will to men, the exaltation of hui
mainly into a millennial state of perfection and the re-
mOval of all the wrongs and errors that have inflicted
mankind since the days of Adam. Is it not entirely safe
to suggest, however. in view of the outcome of the
1916 campaign, that the mere statement that a certain
program is calculated to produce these beneficent re-
suits, does not in itself prove that it will do So? In 1916
we were going to be kept out of the war, and those who
were against the administration were the advance
agents of blOodshed; but in 1917 we were at war. Now
we are being told that President Wilson's plans mean
that this country will forever be removed from the
shadow of war. But if any conclusion can intelli-
gently be drawn from the various proposals of the
Wilson program of nternatiOnalism, it is that our risk
of becoming involved in war will be tremendously in
creased thereby, and that, instead of being kept out of
war, we are kept constantly in the shadow Of war by
becoming partners in responsibility for the peace of
nations at a time when there is more trouble in sight
than ever before in the worlds history.
Mr.. Lockwood doesn't believe that any American VIII
fails to endorse the presidents plan without knowing tn
plan, or Mr.. Tafts plan, or Lloyd Georges plan or any othe
plan for a league of nations, is less an American patriot TO
that. And there are a good many millions of Americans wh'
fail to agree with the president just because he is the presi
dent and they have as good a right to be heard without havin;
ther motives %impugned as the president has.
While the people do not know, and have no means o
knowing, since the advocates of The new internaiOnalisn
tdr-aarec among themselves, just what benefits and perils an'
responsibilities may come to them as the result of incorpor
'atlng the United States into a union for world regulation, the.
vaguely apprehensive that what is now proposed is a rad
zeal departure from the American policy, operative here from
the days of Washington; a departure which will make ever,
home apprehensive of mobilization every time a quarre
breaks out in Russia, in the Balkans, in the near east or il
The Orient. The people of the United States know that for
century and a third they We're untouched by the internatiOna
disputes which continually kept the peoples of the old wOr'
anxious, which necessHated vast standing armies, and which
were a continued game of intrigue in which peoples wer
pawns.