Arizona republican., 1919-01-05
LEAGUE OF NATIONS BAKERS PLEA
In Buffalo Address, War Secretary,
 Says Wilson Is Apostle of Democracy Urges League of Defense as Plaus-
 ible as For Offense Professes Not to Speak For President No Pet Plan.
Republican A. P. Leased WireI

Republican A. p. Leased WireJ
 BUFFALO, Jan. 4-Speaking here tonight before the Buffalo Chamber of Commerce Secretary of War Baker de- clared 1t inconceivable that the peace conference would make the world an lnsupportable tragedy, by failing ta provide for a league of nations or some other arrangement to prevent such disaster in the future
 We here in America who have worked and paid,'' he said, the fathers and mothers who have given their sons. surely have right to some high assurance of future peace, as a con solatlon for their sacrifices. One can not close his eyes and think of the peace conference at Versailles, without feeling that there hover over it the spirits of millions of dead men, de- manding that their sacrifices be not in vain. that the statesmen of the world now secure to mankind the blessings which they died to obtain"
 Mr. Baker said he had no intention of speaking for the president, whose statements had been explicit and in whose hands the case of America now was placed.
 He stands with head erect" said the secretary, in the ancient places of the old world, where other kinds of treaties used to be made, and represents d great and free people He is the ad Vocate not of a form but of a prin- ciple.
 Spokesman of Democracy
 It may be that there are voices in this country which quiver with hesita- tion, and here and there, timorous un- certainty, but back of him in that council chamber. are the voices of the democracies of the world, iof the men who labor and the women who sacri- flee; he is by force of events the spokesman of the democracy of the world, and the compositions of this war will be new magma charta, a new bill of rights to liberate the children of the future from the burdens of the past"
 As to the proposal for a league of nations Mr., Baker said it was not such scheme as the holy alliance suggested | by some of it's critics
 Tt is not proposed out of cabinets of absolute minister's he said, but is rather the passionate demand of the man in the street. the simple and the l unsophlsticated who know little of the intrigues and wiles of statecraft; but l who know a very great deal about the suffering and sacrifices which war en- tails
 For my own part I refuse to be | tlmld about Americas capacity to do new things which are needed in a new world. I decline to distrust our pur- | poses or to shrink from moving for ward, because theN road seems wider and higher than roads We have tray eled hitherto. do not know what form these arrangements can take. I am | not welded to any particular method i Of preserving the peace of the world. I l do not believe that so great an object can be accomplished by merely adher- | ing to a particular form of words or 1 phrases"
 Faces Intricate Problems
 The peace conference MT. Baker said, undoubtedly faced intricate and difficult geographical and racial ques- tions. It would be conceivably pos sible, he added, to make treaties end ing this war in the old way, quieting it's present discords and dealing with each national claim as though it were individual and of no community in- terest."
 But we had world organized ill the old way in 1914" he continued Tn the last months of that year, the heavy currents of international misunder- standing hwirled together, and 1 know of no more pathetic picture tha nthaf
 of the helplessness of the great and
 enlightened governments of the world. as their statesmen watched the stream
 and realized that no provision had been made to stem it. Sir Edward Grey,
 in London, exhausted the arts of tra- , ditional diplomacy to gain moment for reflection: everybody saw the hor- , rible magnitude of the impending dis aster: but there was no organized opin- , ion of the world; there was no agency through which the sane restraints of humanity and justice could operate.
 Tt is inconceivable that the peoples
 of the world willed such a war. It is
 equally inconceivable that teh peoples
 of the world would be willing now to
 face the possibility of another such
 trial, without perfecting in advance
 modes of concerted action, which will
 restrain the madness of the moment and be assurance of just consideration dis polling forever the illusion that either | national greatness or national safety essentially depend upon the ability of a
 people to destroy life, wealth and prop
 erty, without stopping first to test out the possibilities of accommodation and concord.
 Voyage of Discovery. We have had centuries of leagues
 among nations for the purpose of mak-
 ing war offensive and defensive Is ii , too much to believe that in this en-
 frightened age a league to prevent wal s has become impossible?"
 The war had given America a new , vision of her own strength and power s Nlr. Baker declared.
 D We have made a voyage of dis | ties in ourselves he continued. Dem , ocracy has been tested and proved a. , effective as it is wholesome. Politically democracy has vanquished other sys
 tems, and with this political libert! e there has come to us in increasin; = measure vision of the possibilities O e commercial and economic justice" It was the spirit of freedam and righ : that animated the American army il : France, the war secretary declared 7 "Hindenburg lines crumpled like house
 of cards in the face of that spirit" h. :. said, and after the taking of St : Mihiel salient in September. ''an Amer S ican general, with two million Americal . soldiers at his back, drove through tn 2 ArgQnne forest, took Sedan and S S shattered the whole Germany system o n military operations that surrender, nor : complete than unconditional, was ac d cepted by Germany at the point of tn d sword, when the armistice of Novem
 Der II was signed"
 l. MT. Baker made only one reference a touching subjects of criticisms of tn 2 war department recently voiced in tn . senate. "Althoughkthere is much tai = of the United States having to rel e upon Great Britain and France, to sup = ply it's armies with heavy artillery" h