The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-02-26
DISCREDIT WILSON, REPUBLICAN PLAN
With Autocracies Over t VII International League Against War Now Possible.

Washington. Feb. 26-Attacks made by Republican leaders in the Senate with the purpose of embarrassing President Wilson's efforts to obtain an international agreement for the preservation of the worlds peace, and of minimizing his influence in the Paris conference, were the subjects of a sharp rebuke administered by Senator Hitchcock of Nebraska, chair man of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
 In the course of a reply to Senator Hitchcock's reprimand of their par tisanship, Senator Borah of Idaho, one of the most vociferous of the critics of a. League of Nations, con- fessed that his attacks were directed not at President Wilson and his plans, but at former President Taft
 T did not refer to the Presidents league; for I am not yet informed as to what it is; but I was referring to
 the league represented by an ex-
 President Civilian H. Taft), Sena- tor Borah explained.
 We are not attacking anything that the President stands for, so far
 as we know; but we are attacking a proposition which a. most distin- guished member of our own party stands for. Does the Senator (Hitch- cock) object to our family quarrels?" Senator Borah inquired.
 Partisan Crusade Wased, By a coincidence, the Republican Senators who took part in the debate were from three sections of the coun- try-Knox from the East, Kellogg
 from the Middle West, and Borah
 from the Pacific Coast Aside from Senator Borah's admission that there was no agreement in Republican ranks on the subject of 8 League Of l Nations the statements of these
 Senators indicated that they repre- ! scented at least three different opin- ! Ions within their party.
 | All through their attacks on the l Presidents proposals, the Republican | Senators who participated in the de- 1 bate interspersed complaints and ad- missions that they were without in- . formation as to the plans which he i was urging the Peace Conference to ! accept. They confessed that they were ! opposing not the Presidents propos- i aIs, but their own conceptions of 1 what he advocates.
 Senator Walsh of Montana remind
 ed the Republicans that President
 Wilson had not gone to Pals with a
 specific plan which he proposed to i force upon the nations in the con- 1 ference but with an outline and basis i of what should be adopted as a, foun- | dation for world peace. The Cnsti- { tuition f the United NStates, Senator l Walsh pointed out, was the composite i of many ideas. None of the origina- ! tors of various plans for a Federal l Constitution regarded his scheme as
 final and perfect. The President, ] Senator Walsh said, went to the Peace Conference with an open mind, ready to receive suggestions from any quar-
 ter.
 The outline of the League of Ma tions, after formulation by the com missions of delegates, Senator Walsh
 said will be submitted to the confer ence for consideration to emerge as l a completed work in much the same way that the Federal Constitution came from the Constitutional conven-
 tion.
 Senator Hitchcock declared that
 some of the Presidents critics were 1 thinking in terms of conditions as
 they were before the war, when a proposal to prevent international con- ficts might have been doomed to fail ure.
 League Possible Now.
 When this war began, of all the great conquering empires that the , world had known, with their might
 and their dream of conquest, only
 three remained Great Britain had
 become a democracy, prac cttcally; France had become a republic, on the
 plan of our own great republic; Italy
 had become a constitutional mon- | archy- The neutral nations were of similar character. Of all the great
 nations of history dreaming of con- quest, three only remained-Russia with her autocrat and her plan of conquest to the Pacific Ocean and down toward the south; Austria-Hun-
 gary, which in our own day had swallowed up Bosnia and Herzego- z vina, and which was still pressing to the East with her dream of conquest;
 Germany, which in our own day had | seized Schleswig-Holstein from Den
 mark and A1sace-Lorratne from France, absorbed for more than g , quarter of a century with the dream
 of conquering the world-those three great empires were all that remaineG q 3 of the historic conquering nations ot . the world. They lie in the r dust, dead forever, gone. With their = disappearance from the world has
 disappeared the last lingering ob-
 stacle to international peace perpetu- . ated by an international agreement
 So I say to the Senator from Idaho a (Borah), what could not have been = done by an international agreement = before this war, has become possible = now.
 : United States Should lead l ITO me it is an inspiring sight Q that battle that is going on in France t It Is inspiring sight because I see l a mighty conflict between the old that S Is passing away and the, new that is l coming. I see a mighty contest be- 9 tween the sordid nnaterialisn repre- e scented by the statesmen of the pas Q and the ideal represented by the 7 statesmen of the future. It seems tt { me appropriate that the United y States. which is a nation of ideals, z . nation of altruism, a nation wilicI 9 has already become a world benefac. 7 tor, should take the lead. We helped
 to create the Cuban Republic. We