Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1920-03-09

Washington, March 9.--Thc text OF
President Wilson 3 letter to Senator hitch
cock on Article X Of the League OF Ma
tions covenant reads:
The White House.
Washington, March 3, 1920.
NV dear Senator Hitchcock:
| understand that one or two OF your
colleagues do me the honor of desiring
to know what my views are with ref
ercnce to Article Y of the League of
Nations. and the effect upon the League
of the adoption OF certain proposed resegva-
tions to that Article. l welcome the OPP
portunity To throw any light | can upon
a subject which has become so snguarly
bcclouded by misapprehensions and mis-
interpretations of every kind.
There is no escaping the moral obli-
cations which are expressed IN positive
terms IN this Article of the Covenant.
We won moral victory over Germany,
far greater ever than the military victory
won on the field of battle, because the
opinion of the whole world swung to our
support apd the support of the nations
associated with us in the great struggle.
1t did SO because of our common profess
sion and promise that we meant to estab-
lish an organization of peace, which should
make it certain that the combined power
of free nations would check every in
vasion OF right, and serve to make peace
and Justice the more secure by affordlng
a definite tribunal of opinion to which
all must submit and by which every in
ternational readiustment that cannot
be amicably agreed upon by the people
directly concerned shall be sanctioned.
This promise and assurance were writ
ten into the prelIminaries of the armistice
and into the preliminaries of the peace
itself and constitute one of the most
sacred obligations ever assumed by any
nation or body of nations. 1t Is unthink-
able that America should set the example
of ignoring such solemn moral engage
ment.
For myself, / feel that / could not look
the soldiers of our gallant armies in the
face again if / did not do everything In
nv power to remove every obstacle that
lies in the way of the adoption of this
particular article Of the covenant, because
we made these pledges to them as we'll as
to the rest of the world, and it was to this
cause they deemed themselves devoted in
a spirit of crusaders. | should be forever
unfaithful to them If | did not do my
utmost to fulfill the high purpose for W hich
they fought.
| think, my dear Senator, we can dis
miss from our minds the idea that it is
necessary 80 stipulate In connection with
Article Y the constitutional methods we
should use in fulfilling our obligations
under it. We gain nothing by such stipu-
lations and secure nothing which IS not
already secured. 1t was understood as q
matter of course az the conference IN
Paris that whatever obligations any
Government assumed or whatever duties
it undertook under the treaty would of
course have to be fulfilled by its usual and
established constitutional methods of
action.
Once or twice in meetings of the con-
ference, when the treaty was under con-
sideration, reservations were made TO
that effect by the Representatives of in
dividual powers, and those reservation"
were invariably received In the way IN !
which men who have met for business
and not for talk always receive acts of
scrupulous perrogation-listened TO
with Indifferent silence, as such men listen |
to what is a matter OF course and was not !
necessary to say.
There can be no objection to explaining |
again what our constitutional method Is |
and that our Congress alone can declare |
war or determine the causes or occasions |
for war, and that it alone can authorize |
the use of the armed forces OF the United |
States on land or on the sea. But to make /
such a declaration would certainly be q /
work of superrogation.
am sorry to say that the reservations /
that have come under my notice are al
most, without exception. not interpreta-
tions of the articles to which it is proposed !!
10 attach them but In effect virtual nulli- .
fications of those articles.
any reservation which seeks to deprive
the League of Nations of the force OF |
Article X cuts at the very heart and life I
of the covenant itself. Any League of Ma
tions which does not guarantee as q matter
of incontestable right the political inde-
pendence and integrity of each OF its |
members might be hardly more than
futile scrap OF paper, as Ineffective IN /
operation As the agreement between
Belgium and Germany which the Germans
violated In 1914.
: Article Y, as written into the Treaty of /
Versailles, represents the remuneration by /
Great Britain and Japan, which before the
war had begun to find so many interests
In common In the Pacific: by France, by
Italy, by all the great fighting powers of
the world of the old pretensions of politi-
cal conquest and territorial aggrandize-
meEt. 1t Is a new doctrine In the world s
affairs and must be recognized or there is
no secure basis for the peace which the
whole world so desperately needs.
If Article X is not adopted and acted
upon, the governments which reject it
will, l think, be guilty of bad faith to
their people, whom they induced to make
the infinite sacrifices Of the war by the
pledge that they would be fighting to re-
deem the world from the old order of |
force and aggression. They wall be acting
also in bad faith to the opinion of the world
at large, to (Which they appealed for support
IN concerted stand against the agressaons
and pretens,ons of Germany.
If we were to reject Article Y or so to
weaken 1t as to take lis full force out Of