Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1920-04-17

A PECULIARLY significant turn of the
- present campaign in Georgia was the
alacrity and, we imagine, great shrug
of relief with which Hon. A. Mitchell Pal
mer retired from the trenches when he real
dzed the character and purpose of the war
fare he had been summoned to lead. In his
swivel chair at Washington Mr.. Palmer doubt
less interpreted the invitation and appeal of
a certain political clique as a solemn call to
Service, a cry from Macedonia to come down
and save an erring people from perdition. In
his minds eye he saw an epic battle, his
DONG distance advisors host of shining war
riors himself their redOubtable leader.
Quixote never sailed forth from the horse lot
Of La Mancha with hotter pulse or higher ex-
pectation thar -" Attorney General brought
burning to his Georgia adventure.
Is Alas, the disillusion! Scarcely had he ar
rived amongst his moody retainers when he
perceived that instead of their being aflame
with zeal for an unmodified League of Ma
Hons, they were consumed with fractional
nate for a distinguished Democrat bv the
name of Hoke Smith. Instead of lofty dis
courses on "the parliament of man. and "the
federation of the world he heard a crashing
OF teeth and babb1e of abuse in which the
distinctive note, as we'll as he could gather.
Eelated to forty dead bodies'' being drug
from the Senate chamber" Hailing from the
Woodland of Quaker Penn, if not straight
from the City of Brotherly Love, Mr.. Palmer
and NORWOOD He had not previously con-
sidered it needful to charge a man with all
the crimes of the calendar in order to oppose
him on political issues. He doubtless had
felt, indeed, that one might easily dissent
from anOthers politics without denying his
serviceableness, much less assailing his char
acter. Not so with these new associates;
with them it was to be all fire and brim-
stone, thunder and gore. If he had come
expecting a council of benignant spirits hero
fn6 tn fhn fIo
League covenants ps and as and commas
all unaltered, what must have been his emo
tions as it dawned upon him that in reality
he was in the hands of political feudists whose
chief if not only interest lay in destroying the
States senior Senator.
With this uninspiring commencement Mr.
Palmer proceeded upon his missionary tour
The further he went the more plainly did he
see that the Democrats of Georgia had been
doing some thinking of their own on the is
sue OF the League of.4Nations. He saw, if
ne made the best of his opportunities for
observation, that while some were unuuaIi-
fledly against the League and others un0ua1i-
Tledly against reservations, the majority were
Of the belief that in this controversy if els
peter to take the course that will assure the
Hreaty's adoption and the return to normal
conditions than to play the role of Bitter
Enders and lose great principle rather than
compromise detail. Now, ostensibly Mr.
Palmer was not antagonistic to this view: he
conceded that some reservations might be
allowable, provided they passed muster he
fore the Presdent-though what thew would
pc has never yet been suggested nor so far
as we know, even surmised. The crux of the
matter, however, is that the Treaty with
che League covenant, cannot procure a rati-
Tying majority in the Senate without those
reservations on which the Senate majority
insists. Nor is there the remotest likelihood
of the Senate's personnel being so altered
WITHIN the next year or so as to change this
aeelslvely important fact Obviously then,
IL we are to have League covenant it must
sbe-such covenant as the present Senate will
approve; that is to say, covenant accom-
panied by the reservations which the ma
gor1ty OF the Senate considers essential The
practical question, therefore, is simply this
Snail the Treaty be ratified and tranquility
restored, upon these terms, or shall our in
4ternatlonal relations, involving our own and
the worlds vital interests be held Indefinite
~ in suspense? Shall we have a League
OF Nations which assuredly will be a great
conserVer OF peace and probably a fore-run-
ner of larger undertakings in the decades
ahead, or shall We reject the present oppor-
tunity altogether rather than accent the Sem
ate majOrlty's reservations? 1t was upon this
very question that Mr.. Palme's candidacy be-
fore the people of Georgia went to pieces.
For while he 'dsclaimed the attitude of
standing out against any reservations what
sQever, he avowedly opposed the only reserva-
lions with which it is possible to carry the
1ISdty " duOpCIOu, anu uOL once ulQ he 1nLl-
mate just what reservations he would con-
slider acceptable. Thus his position became
virtually the same as that of the Bitter End
SRI. NO wonder he found the Georgia rank
ana file unresponsive to such plea and I'M
willing to reject a good and faithful servant
of their own to follow such a -o'-the-wisp.
While the Attorney General was absorbing
the truth of this situation and barking to the
ever wilder volleys of abuse which his feud-
list retinue turned upon the senior Senator,
hn tprr no f1IJ no fnt %
fut news from Michigan. In the pivotal pri-
mary to whose outcome he had expected to
point his Georgia audiences as evidence of his
real candidacy and his real propscet of figur-
ing before the San Francisco convention; the
primary into which he had poured agrees
siYe energy and eloquence, not to speak of
more material contributions; the primary
which he was supposed to have to himself,
the others being all involuntary candidates
and requesting their friends not to campaign
for thenl-in this peculiarly favorable and
..~.c",'t contest, Ii ran fifth end last, re-