The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-05-05
DISILLUSIONMENT
FOLLOWS LEAGUE
PLAN IN EUROPE
Battles Fought in East While
Covenant is Adopted =
League is Lifeless.
BY FRANK n. SiMONDS.
Copyright, 1919. BY the McClur
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VIM WClO plSSSul VI. WuOS6 OplulOAo
would otherwise be interesting. and
the single clear impression as disclos-
ed for those who were presnt and
for others is the clear sense of tragic
disappointment and equally manifest
establishment.
1t is necessary for a moment to
recall the circumstances of that ses-
sion. When President Wilson had
completed his statement, the voices
of Japan, Belgium and France were
raised in immediate protest, while
the vacant place of Italy was even
more eloquent testimony to facts as
they were. Moreover, for those who
were present, there was conscious
ness that while the Paris conference
was thus adopting the League of Ma
tons which carried with it no power
to enforce it's decisions, actual war
was raging from the Gulf of Finland
to the Crimean Peninsula. that the
Roumanians and Bolshevists were
j fighting in the Dniester, the Rouman-
ians and Hungarians along the Thesis.
the Poles and Bolshevists on the front
from Wilma to Pinsk, and the Jugo-
Slavs and Italians were facing each
other in arms on the shores of the
Adriatic.
League Without Power.
In the session itself the atmosphere
was unmistakable Correspondents of
journals of countries all over the al
lied world equally testified to the
same impression of disappointment.
While the formal phrases of the
covenant were adopted, there sounded
in the ears of those who heard the
-, - - IF n rFf7
les still fighting on European soil.
and there was in their minds the rea-
lization that one of the great allies
had already left the peace conference
on the question of national ambition,
while still another was daily threaten
ing to take the same course. More
over, for a third for France, as
for Italy and Japan, there was plain
warning in the words of the Bourgeois
that the covenant of the League OF
Nations had become a dead thing
because no power had been bestowed
upon the league to protect the mem
bers against attack coming from with
out.
There seems to be an impression in
America that opposition to the League
of Nations comes from reactionary
quarters in continental Europe, and
that the mass of people in all coun-
tries believed in and accepted this
document. This was the obvious be
lief of the president when he appealed
to the Italian people over the heads OF
their government, but today the re-
Spouse of the Italian people is unmis-
taxable They have followed their
government with the same enthusiasm
and unanimity that the German peo-
pie marched with it's government In
the crucial days of July, 1914. There
has been revealed again how impossi
BILE it is to rally a country to abstract
Justice when national aspiration Is re
buffed.
Moreover, it is now clear that II
conservative Europe always distrusted
the League of Nations, Socialist and
radical Europe is now equally oppos
ed. "Humanite," speaking for the So
cialists of France. says today: I'VE
declare, then, once for all, that the pro
letariat affirms its bitter disillusion
ment. We are not astonished that the
International Socialist conference a
this moment meeting at Amsterdam
alec unanimously rejects this societ!
of nations"
Guarantee Demanded.
am convinced that If a measure o
hope for the future of the League o
Nations survives in Great Britain
where conditions in a degree recall
those of the United States, sine
Great Britain, like the United States
is separated by an ocean rampant from
the continent, that on the continen
the covenant of the League OF Nation
has already become as meaningless a
the agreements at the Hague. TIL
Italian gesture which has produce
the crisis from which we have nc
vet recovered was a final blow. War
now going on in the East were an III
answerable illustration of the incapa'
ity of the peace conference to des
with Bolshevism.
Continental Europe, conscious tina
its necessities, its Age Long traditions
its peculiar problems, have not bee
understood, is Enthusiastically in th
throes of reaction against idealicti
solutions for what 1t regards as total
practical problems. The French al
demanding from their British an
American allies a guarantee in mil
tary fact against new German a
tack, the Italians are taking root o
the eastern coast of the Adriatic.
Fiume and Dalmatia, in defiance {
the appeal of the president. and
obedience to the dictates of the n;
tion's security The Poles are inva,
ing Lithuania and preparing to attaC
Germany to possess themselves of tie
ritories the conference OF peace ha
allotted to them.
The League of Nations Representa-
before all else the conviction of til
president and those Americans VII
share his views that all men of a
nations, without regard to ancient ri
Aires or contemporary difference
were prepared to rally to the ne
saspel to overturn their government
II their governments refused to hee
the new voice and pursued the o.
pathways The last four months hay
clearly and Enthusiastically demonstra
ed that the peoples of Europe quite 1
much as and perhaps more than the
governments are controlled by old co
ceptions of national unity, political S
curity, individual economic existenc
and development. They have demo
strated that France will accept I
League of Nations that does not carr
with it the specific additional guara
tee by Great Britain and the Unite
States against new attack by &c