The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1920-05-07
KNOCKS PROPOSAL
Unsatisfactory
----~e----
His Speech On Peace R,e s
luton Is Destructive :
Criticism h.
F 4 a. + .e14s4
NO CONCRETE
PLAN OF ACTION
His Position Similar to That of Sena-
tor Johnson President Will Fight
to Have Democratic National Con-
vention Endorse His Views.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.
(convripht hv The Reformer. \


- Copyright by The Reformer.A
WASHINGTON, May T. - President
WILSON, has waited IN silence for the
men who defeated the treaty of Yer
sailles in the senate, to offer an alterna
tive course of action. Senator Philan-
der C. Knox, former secretary of state,
and Republican leader, member of the
group irreconcilably opposed to the
treaty with or without reservations, has
spoken in defense of the plan to make
peace by congressional resolution. lnso-
far as this brings ont at last the lines
of battle, it marks a step forward to-
ward the great contest at the polls
where the issue viii be decided; insofar
as it emphasizes the hopeless deadlock
between the executive and legislative
branches Of the government, it breathes
anew the passion of personal strife and
party bitterness which has prevented
agreement for so long.
The Pennsylvania senator's speech
made a deep impression. 1t was care
fully prepared and skillfully pieeed to-
gether But it was avowedly destrue-
tive criticism-an analysis of what had
been done, what might have been done.
what should have been proposed at
Paris. II doesn t propose any concrete
cor general plan for action III the face Of
today's situation beyond vague sug-
gestion for an international conference
some day wherein European nations
should be persuaded to give up the pro-
visions of the treaty which they have
already ratified and are now executing
and set up a new basis of international
i law.
But Senator Knox makes an honest
presentation of the viewpoint of the
| irreconcilables He doesn't take refuge
behind the cry for "proper reserva-
| lions. > He brushes aside as "nntrue'
all the talk about Americanizing the
treaty with reservations INDUCED IN
| by Messrs. Lowden, Harding, Wood,
VIII HAYS and others He defines the
issue exactly as Senator Hiram John
son has so persuasively put it in his
successful primary campaign. He Is
against the whole treaty and the league.
| Here is the most interesting paragraph
| in the speech:
| cit has been said that reservations
proposed in the senate Americanize the
| league This. of course, is not true. A
more accurate statement of the effect or
| those reservations is that they tend to
! make it safer for America TO enter the
| league by refusing to be bound III many
| important matters by its action. But
| it is not enough that the league shall
| be made safe for America; it must be
made safe for all who enter it and safe
| for the world As | soc it, nothing
could be fraught with more danger than
| any nation having specially insured
relation to a league where the other
members arc subject TO the dangers
against which the immune nation at
| tempts to secure itself
The foregoing is exactly what Presi-
| dent Wilson has contended in his opposi-
ton to reservations and will explain to
the historian of the future why Sen
atpr Knox and the irreconcilable Re-
publcans voted with the administra.
ton Democrats against the Lodge res
ervations and thus prevented the treaty
| from getting the necessary two-thirds.
1t makes it possible for the President to
insist that the Republican party is dom
mated by the viewpoint Of Senators
Knox and Hiram Johnson and not by
Senator Lodge 1t foreshadows the di
vision Of voters into three parties on the
treaty issue at least.
| Senator Knox marshalled precedent
after precedent to prove that peace by
joint resolution is as effective legally
as treaty of peace. There ism t Bit
of doubt that if the President happened
to be on the other side of the fence
those same precedents would be mar
shalled by him. No doubt exists here
that hostilities have ended in the wal
with Germany and that for all prac.
teal purposes the war is at an end But