Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1919-09-23

90 ELFIsH, immoral and dishonorabie''
says Senator McCumber, of the pro
49, posed amendments to the Treaty OF
Peace. The force of his criticism lies in the
fact that he is a Republican member OF
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
staunch Republican, but an American
withal, and too highly concerned for his
country's welfare to place prejudice and
partisanship above her interests and honor
Tn his dissenting report (and it should
be observed that he is the only Republican
member of Committee who was not picked
and primed by the Lodge faction) the
Senator from North Dakota asks why a
country whose history has been devoted to
the peaceful settlement of international dis
mites is suddenly to have its policy reversed
and become in effect an opponent OF the
only means that has been attempted to as
sure world peace?" Of the tone and tenn
ner of the Lodge reservations, he rightly
saws. ''they are couched in a defiant, dis
courteous and overbearing manner, and
seem intended to express j1ngolstlc spirit
that ought to be eliminated from American
craftsmanship" while of their substance he
declares that they "seek to isolate the
United States from the rest of the world
and abandon our allies"
Isolation. shameful isolation-that in
deed is the policy which the Treatys foes
are urging They would have us turn
our backs upon the obligations and the OPP
portunities, the duties and the friendships
we acquired in the World War. They would
have us say in effect to the nations with
whom we were associated and who look to
us for moral cooperation in these still cru
ciaI times: your affairs and mankind's fu-
ture are no concern of ours; we are not
our neghbors' keeper; we have no 1nrer-
est in our neighbors' needs; if another war
is threatened, let it come; as for us, we are
minded to live to ourselves"
To the Hiram Johnsons and Philander
Knoxes. this seems brave policy; and to
the Lodges and Shermans, a prudent one.
But to statesmen like Senator McCumber-
and we believe, to the rank and file OF the
American people as well-it seems :'selfish,
immoral and dishonorable." 1t is foolish1y
selfish, and would prove disastrously so.
We could not live only to ourselves if we
would. The very environment of the age
the age of the wireless message, and Of
airplanes that wing the Atlantic wastes
forbid it. The world is no more the same
place it was in the time of Washington
than in Washington's time it was the same
place it was before Columbus added new
continent to it's history. Chinese walls
will not stand against the electric tides of
this century The wish to be selfish will
not insuIate us from the currents Of a
common humanity. We must stand with
peaceable, just-minded nations for the
good of all, or we shall stand inevitably as
a distrusted nation. We must do our part
toward preserving the peace for which mil
lions besides our own heroic youths gave
their lives, or we shall be accounted no bet
ter than cold bargainers in human sacri-
flee. Where would be the morality, and
where the honor, of sharing redemption
from Prussianism's deadly menace, yet re-
fusing- to share the responsibilities which
swarm in the wake of the greatest of wars
Americans were never scuttlers, they were
never cutters. Yet if the counsel of the
Senatorial faction that is fighting the
Peace Treaty and the League Covenant
should prevail, we would be written down
as a nation of shirkers and recreants.
Here is a great opportunity and a great
plan for international co-working in the
cause of peace, a plan designed chiefly by
American craftsmanship and of the very
essence of American principles. Our assO-
ciates in the war for freedom have ac-
cepted it intellectually and stand ready
to do their best to make it's benign pur-
poses effectual. Shall the United States re-
ject it, and so say to our friends that we
will have no part or lot in their effort to
preserve peace and promote civilization?
Shall this be our memorial to them who
died gloriously across the sea that an old
evil order might be conquered and a new
world be born? Senator Lodge and those
and the League seem to have forgotten why
it was sent two million men to France.
They seem to have forgotten the whole prin-
ciple upon which we entered the gigantic
struggle over there-the principle that the
world must be made safe snd kept safe for
democracy, and that if justice were not done
to others it would not be done to us. They
ignore the tremendously important fact that
our mission, far from ending when Ger
many signed the armistice, was then just
begun in its largest aspects and most vital
reaches. For not until something has been
done, not until the best of which we are
capable has been done to prevent another
such war, will the chief cause for which
America took up arms be vindicated
How that end be served if not
through a League of Nations formed upon
the lines prescribed in the pending Treaty?
The Obstructionists have offered no alter
native to the plan which they seek to de-
stroy or disrupt by amendments. They had
no constructive suggestions when the Treaty
was being framed, and they have no pro-
pOsals now save enemies of the entire
undertaking. If it be selfish" to try to
diplomacy simply out of dudgeon against
the President, Senator McCumber is we'll
justified in his rebuke to his Republican
colleagues on the Foreign Relations Com
mittee. Justified he is, mOreover,-a thou
sand times justified--if it be Immoral to
leave the way to war unguarded, and if it
be 'dishonorable" to desert duty and
friends.