Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1920-07-22
COL. HARVEY TALKS
ABOUT LEAGUE PLANK

The chief feature of the league
plank in the democratic platform,
upon which Governor Cox has been
nominated, is its untruthfulness. II
bears in every sentence the ear
marks of dictation from the white
house, and in every important part
it is instinct with the same insin-
certify and disingenuousness that has
hitherto characterized the utteranees
of the president upon the same sub
ject.
The first such falsehood is the
plump assertion that it was for the
establishment of league OF nations
that America went to war with Ger
many. OF that the REGARD is ample
contradiction. The act of congress
declaring that state of war had
been forced upon us by Germany
made not the remotest reference to
any such purpose, and that act is the
only authoritative statement of the
reasons for and circumstances of oui
entry into the war. 1t does not
matter what the president or any
body else said or wrote or thought oil
dreamed Mr. Wilson in his exag.
6SAatCo AhCb may nave lhl-
agined that his address to congress
was the official declaration of war;
but it was not. He may imagine
now that his speech expressed the
purpose of the nation in entering
the war; but it did not. "A resolu-
ton declaring that we were entering
the war in order to establish a
league of nations would not have
commanded a corporal's guard of
votes in either house and would
have been greeted with universal
public execration. Either the act of
congress was false or this platform
plank Is false. We prefer to be-
lieve the act of congress.
The plank is grossly false also, by
suggestion, in its denunciation of
"the republican senate for its refusal
to ratify the treaty" A sense of or
binary decency should have restrain
ed the making of such a statement in
a convention which had Just exclud-
ed from its membership democratic
senator for the sole reason that he
had been conspicuous and resolute
opponent of such ratification, when
it was ,known that at least nalf of
the democratic senators were oppos-
ed to ratification, without effective
reservations, and when 1t was notori-
Gus that the failure of ratification
was directly and solely due to the
personal interposition of the presi-
dent, who ordered II to be defeated
by democratic votes rather than have
1t ratified with reservations which,
while quite acceptable to the other
signatories, ran counter to his own
autocratic will and his own selfish
designs.
A third and peculiarly offensive
falsehood is the implication that the
adoption of the Knox resolution was
an attempt to commit what Senator
Lodge had formerly described as ''the
blacklist crime" of attempting to
make separate peace with Germ
any. The author o fthat falsehsod
knew perfectly well that there was
no analogy nor resemblance between
the two things. Senator Lodge
spoke of the infamy of making a sep
arate peace while the issues of war
were yet undecided and undeter-
mined. The Knox resolution bore
not the slightest resemblance to that.
1t was introduced and passed more
than a year after the president him
self had officially proclaimed the
end of the war, and nearly a year
after the formal treaty of peace had
been made, signed, ratified and gone
into effect. The attempt to cast up
on it and those who voted for 1t the
obloquy which would have properly
fallen upon us II we had deserted our
allies in the midst of the war, Is one
of the most contemptibly dishonest
tricks that have befouled recent po-
litical controversy.
Following these things, comes an
appropriate epilogue:
We do not oppose the acceptance
Of any reservations making clearer
or more specific the obligations Of
the United States to the league as
sociates.
Wonderful, indeed! We shall
now hear the changes rung upon the
expressed willingness of the presi-
dent to accept such reasonable reser-
vations. But mark that they are to
be such alone as make more specific
and more clear our obligations.
There is not a word about making
more clear and more specific our re-
served rights. No. nothing but our
obligations. Anything which will
emphasize more strongly our sub
servience to an alien council, any