Arizona republican., 1920-10-14
Presidents Statement To Peace Meeting Cited By Idaho Senator as Possi- bility of League Pact
ARMIES AND NAMES
 WOULD CROSS SEAS
Borah Compares Actual Working of Covenant With Paper Theories of League of Nations
[RepubIIcan A. P. Leased wIrel

MANCHESTER, N. H.. Oct. 13.- President Wilson, in a speech at the peace conference already subject Of widely published controversy between him and Senator Spencer of Missouri, declared that if any covenants of this United States will send her armies and navies to see that they are ob- served" Senator Borah of Idaho aS- serted in an address here tonight.
 "The controversy between Senator Spencer and the president has been in teresting." said Senator Borah, mot so much because it may illustrate the fallibility of memory but because it shows how this league looks when you begin to view it in its practical work ings. The moment you descend from the opalescent empyrean of theories to the world of concrete things 1t looks altogether different. So long as you confine yourself to the league on paper | and dTell in the world of rhetoric everything seems we'll
 But when you get down to the act | ual workings of the league, it seems | harsh and autocratic and altogether l objectionable. When they tell. us that | the league win bring peace. everybody wants peace and so favors the league. But when you turn from theory to fact and see it obligates us to send our
 
 navy, it creates an uproar of disap- proval and hastens explanation and | denials. Yet that is precisely what the | league in it's practical workings means. Theory and Practice Disagree There are two things stated in the speech President Wilson put out as authoritative. which sustain every charge we have ever made against this gigantic autocracy based on force. The | first statement reads as follows:
 AS back of that lies the funda- | mental and important fact that when l the decisions are made the allied and assocsated powers guarantee to main ] tain them How are you going to
 maintain them except by sending the | army and the navy across the sea2 We
 have first the solemn guarantee of the
 allied and associated powers to main- ! tain all decisions and all boundaries. 1 As to how we are going to do this is
 answered by the president himself in l another place in the same speech. in
 which he says:
 "Tf any covenants of this settle
 ment are not observed the United | States will send her armies and navies
 to see that they are observed. 1 We must not close our eyes to the l fact that in the last analysis the mili- ] tary and naval strength of the great ! powers will be the final guarantee of ! the peace of the world
 When the president was before the
 foreign relations committee. Senator Il Knox asked this question: Suppose that it is perfectly obvious that there
 is an external aggression against some
 power and suppose it is perfectly ob-
 vious and accepted, that it cannot be
 repelled except by force of arms, would
 we be under any legal obligation to
 participate? The president replied to
 this. No. sir. but we would be under
 an absolutely compelling moral obli-
 gation'
 T take it that it will not make very
 much difference to the American peo-
 pie, to the sons and mothers of Amer
 ica, whether you call it legal obliga-
 tion or a moral obligation, or what
 you call it. if it is an obligation abso- , lutely compelling and from the execu- : ton of which there is no escape. Is ii : not perfectly plain that we guarantee
 the settlements and the boundaries o1
 Europe and that if there is an actual
 disturbance of these boundaries we are under an absolutely compelling [ moral obligation to send our armie. l and our navies across the sea? Is fl
 not equally plain that we are carrying out the decisions of these men repre- [ senting the whole world. the division: } which they established, and that w, r are doing so by the blood and treas ure of America?
 3 "The incredible thing about thi. r whole proposition is that such
 scheme should ever have been seri- l ously submitted to a people who hay, l been trained to democracy and de. voted to the principles of popular gov. , ernment."