New-York tribune., 1920-10-05
Most Impudent Audacity

cussion. But he neglects to add
that of all men he is the chief Of
fender.
Pursuing his purposes secretly,
never taking the public into conf
dence, quarreling with friends when
they dared to venture advice, when
ever criticism has become so loud he
could no longer ignore it, he has i'm
itated the cuttletish and emitted a
cloud Of oracular misrepresentation
Then, having created what to him
seems satisfactory state of opacity,
he proceeds from behind its screen
to rage against his critics. Thus
ir his latest he in effect insultingly
tells the American people that they
aresfools and that their only proper
function is to accept his unsupported
assertions.
The particular audacity the Presi-
dent now features is in regard to
Article X. He is brazen enough to
say this article in nowise impairs
future liberty of national action
that Congress will be free to declare
war or not according to its own in
dependent Judgment, as the Consti-
tuition provides.
The President trifes with a grave
ubject-endeavor to make half
truth do the work of the whole
truth. Of course, the prerogative
of Congress is technically respected.
But it is not denied that there is
sought to be set up an engine of
coercive influence which will in
fact take away from Congress its
freedom and compel it to act ac-
cording as the league council and
the President may dictate.
AS to the ar-declaring power of
Congress, the President is Of the
same mind as he is in regard to
the treaty-ratifying power Of the
Senate. He would acknowledge the
power and thus prevent its exer-
else.
Does he think the American peo-
pie are so stupid as to be deceived
by an evasive and transparent non
sequitur? Imagine a cook who
stirred her fire to white heat and who
then said to the water in her kettle:
Dear water, you are at liberty to
boil or not boil, just as you like"
The President knows better than
most men that a power can be de-
stroyea though nominally intact. On
Page 233 Of his book Congress
sional Government he describes a
Presidents ability ITO get the coun-
try into such scrapes, so pledged in
the view of the world to certain
courses of action" that to avoid the
appearance of dishonor he must
be sustained" Mr.. Wilson thus has
long known the technique of coerc
ing Congress.
On the council of the League of
Nations, if his plan were adopted,
would sit the Presidents personal
representative, not representative
Of Congress or of the nation as
whole. This agent would do what a
President ordered, and the protec-
ton of the unanimity rule Of the
council would evaporate. Oh, it
would be easy for willful chief ex-
ecutive to have his way without
legally impairing the letter Of the
Constitution,
The insincerity Of the present
White House illumination is further
more attested by certain things
said by the President, when on
August 10, 1919, the members of
the Foreign Relations Committee
were his guests. In response to a
query of Senator Knox in regard to
: Article X he admitted that we would
be under an absolutely compelling
moral obligation to participate in
wars Again, in reply to Senator
Harding, as to the duty of this
country to go in, he said: "a moral
obligation is of course superior to
a legal obligation, and, if may say
so, has greater binding force"
The President cannot have the
matter both ways. If Congress is,
under one obligation, superior to a
legal one, not to exercise its right to
refuse to declare war, it is, of course,
nonsense for him to intimate, as he
does now, that only liars spread the
SANDER that the covenant takes away
discretion from Congress.
Not by such wretched sophistry
are the American people to be de-
luded. A Congress that acts under
the compulsion of a moral obliga-
tion which is superior to even an
express legal obligation is not free,
and no White House ipse di1it can
make it so.
Another phase Of the matter will
not escape attention. Much has been