New-York tribune., 1919-02-18

"Mere agreements may not make peace
secure. 1t will be absolutely necessary
that a force be created as guarantor
of the permanency OF the settlement so
much greater than the force of any nation
now engaged or any alliance hitherto
formed or projected that nation, no
probable combination of nations, could
face or withstand it. If the peace present
ly to be made is to endure. it must be
peace made secure by the organized
major force of mankind
In the closed door negotiations at Paris
the President. as is shown by the docu-
ment which it is declared has "a good
and sufficient reason for the phraseology
and substance of every article" and
hence is to be swallowed whole-the Pres
ident has opposed those who camped
where he camped in 1917
The covenant, as it is called, has no
clear sanction of force behind it. Not
soldier or a ship is placed at the disposal
Of the central organization. 1t relies on.
public opinion to secure respect for its
decisions-a public opinion that proved
pitifullv inadequate in 1914. Even the
decisions are unoriginal and derived-de-
pend. not on the judgment of the coun-
Gil. but on the instructions of home
governments.
We have before us not world consti-
tuition akin to the Constitution of the
United States, supreme and elf-acting
in It's appointed field, but something like
the Articles of Confederation, under
which the Continental Congress, as Mr..
Wilson as a historian has often pointed
out. possessed advisory power, and hence
no power at all. 1t is true, besides
authority to raise hue and cry, there
is an article contemplating an economic
as probably to be of little practical value.
Clemenceau. in behalf of the French,
said Let us create an organized major
force of mankind by coalition or an
alliance to guarantee settlement that
is just and righteous; let nations which
are together in this war enter into pact
of mutual and general Obligation" TO
this offer the President in his Manches-
ter speech replied that the United States
would enter into no such arrangement
threatened to withdraw from the negot-
ations rather than do it. The French
Prime Minister then suggested an inter
national police force. This also the
President rejected, pleading the lmita-
tions of the American Constitution. But
with the very citadel of the American po-
siton abandoned and the French but
reechoing the Presidents first ideas, we
behold wide propaganda to support the
absur1ity that the French are in some
way imperialists and unfriendly to a
peace league. Political exigences may
demand the misrepresentation, and large
numbers of persons may be temporarily
deceived by an energetic partisanship
but the truth will ultimately be recog-
nzed
In so far as the international execu-
tive council can be converted into five
nation league, and this fve-nation league
associates with its sublime work all peo-
pies that can be induced to help COM
munity Of power will be created and the
world organized for peace instead of
for war. But in and by itself the new
machinery will effect little. The Hague
convention was not able to save peace
in 1914, while a definite entente among
Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan and
the United States would have saved it.
The hope Of the future lies in having.
ii another crisis comes, such comrnu-
nifty Of power as the world did not have
In 1914. Put out this highland it is
dimmcd 10 the degree that distrust is
stimulated by associates whose whole
hearted cooperation IL neceggarv--and
IN the dark the seeds Of war will spring
again into nozious growth.
The great business Of the American
press, avoiding the twin pests of narrow
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