Albuquerque morning journal., 1920-02-21
PROS AND ANTS
TRYING To WASH
HANDS Of DELAY
! To PEACE PACT
Both Parties Engaged in the
National PaStime, PASS
+ ing the Buck" " for Pres
ent Treaty Status,
DEBATE RESULTS IN
MORE COMPLICATIONS
Can't Even Agree on Which
Side Originated the BIZ
! Partisan Conferences Dis
CuSSiOn Becomes Heated,

icy MORNING JOURNAL SPECIAL LEASED wiREl
Washington, Feb. 20.--The ques-
ton of party responsibility for the
peace treaty deadlock was thresh-
ed over in militant fashion on the
senate floor today with both the
republicans and democrats seeking
to wash their hands of the senate's S
failure to act and of any conse-
quences in the political campaign
Z Although both sides professed an
earnest desire to compromise and
squabble for the credit for past
compromise efforts, there was such
a note of hopefulness in the discus
sion that the treaty's irreconcilable
opponents that party leaders told
the opposing party leaders they
might as well put the question Of
ratification out of their minds and
turn the senates attention to the
business of legislation.
Among other things, the debate
brought out a direct disagreement
of facts as to which side originated
the bipartisan conference, i'll
which five democrats and four re-
pubicans sought unsuccessfully to
work out an agreement and as to
what transpired behind the closed
doors of the conference sessions.
Senator Hitchcock, of Nebraska
the democratic leader, started the
flare up by speech denying
charges that the democrats wanted
the treaty in the campaign. He as
serted that his party had gone
"nine-tenths of the way to a COM
promise and that the republicans
had stood solidly for acceptance
of their own reservations. without
the dotting of an or the crossing
of t."
1t was the minority, he declared,
who had instigated the bipartisan
movement and who now had sub
mitted two compromise Article x
reservations which many republic
Can senators believed were identi-
cal in substance with the Lodge
resolution on that subject.
Claiming credit for the republi-
cans in the initiation of the bi-par-
san conference, Senator Lenroot
of Wisconsin, one of the mild res
ervatonist republicans, charged that
the democratic leader had stood out
against compromise so determined
ly that the republican leaders were
driven to agree upon the best COM
promise they could among them
selves.
Senator Borah, republican, of
Idaho, speaking for the irreconcila-
bes, declared the two sides were
no nearer agreement than they
were when the league of nations
debate began year ago tomorrow
and that further discussion was
only waste of time. The treaty, he
said, already was so far into the
campaign that 'you can no more
keep it out than you can step half
way over Niagara"
The disagreement over what oc-
Cured in the bipartisan conference
arose when Senator Mcclellan of
Tennessee, one of the democratic
conferees, asserted that all of the
nine senators except Senator Hitch
'cock and senator Lodge, the repub-
lican leader, had virtually agreed to
one of the article ten substitutes
formally endorsed since by forty
democrats. The statement was de-
MED categorically by Senators New
of Indiana and Lenroot, who were
republican members of the confer
enCe.
Leaders said tonight that the de-
bate probably would be continued
tomorrow, and that a vote might
be reached during the day on the
first proposed modification of the
reservation adopted at the last ses-
sion of congress-