New-York tribune., 1920-12-31
Confident, After Visit to
Marion, That Association
of Nations Plan Bars
Wilson Pact Machinery
Believed Emissary
OF IrrecOncilables
Suggests That the State
of War With Germany
Should End at Once
From a Staff Correspondent


MARION, Ohio, Dec. 3O.-Senator
Philander C. Knox came from a con-
ference with President-elect Harding
to-day expressing satisfaction with the
unrevealed scheme for an association
of nations. The Pennsylvania Senator
also declared his confidence that the
Harding plan did not contemplate the
inclusion of machinery of the Yer
sailles league.
The visit here of Senator Knox was
attributed to the apprehensions of
some of the Senate irreconcilables that
President-elect Harding was building
his plan for world cooperation with
tlmbers from the league structure
erected at Paris
During the evening Senators Har-
ding and Knox spent at the hame of
Senator Harry New in Washington,
after the return from Panama, they
had full and complete discussion of
foreign policies. Senator Harding also
talked with Senator Hiram Johnson
and other rreconcilables in Washing
ton. Therefore, when Senator Knox
came to-day, it was generally believed
that he was acting as the emmssary
of the Senate irreconcilables.
Senator Knox was asked after he
left Senator Harding how the irrecon-
cilable group had received report
that Senator Harding was considering
the Versailles league. shorn of Article
X and other Objectionable features, as
basis for his plan.
Will Get Together on Plan
II never credited that rumor," said
Senator Knox, "because | couldn't i'm
aghe how Senator Harding could mis-
construe the mandate of the American
people and backtrack on declara tions
made in campaign speeches. Following
my conference with him this morning,
am convinced that he has no such
idea in mind. The Senate has conf
dence in him, and we will get together
on a plan that will be acceptable to
the country as we'll as the Senate"
AS matter of fact, throughout the
campaign Senator Harding was scrupu-
lously careful in his speeches to confine
his objections to the Versailles league
to tn" > |i~"ti7' il undertook to i'm
pose on the United States, particularly
snusc onI.sa.i~ns wli.tcn into Artic e
K and in a lesser degree Article XII.
Repeatedly in the campaign Senator
Harding would say to his audiences:
~ Will never accept the covenant
with Article X in it,"
made wnat was interpreted as fiat
statement that he would never accept
the League of Nations. The leaders
OF the campaign were watching very
closely at that time a straw vote that
was being taken over the country by
chain of drug stores. For a week
after that Dcs Moines speech an alarm
ing reaction in favor of Cox was re-
vealed in the straw vote, and Senator
Harding issued an Interpretation of
his Des Moines speech, in which he
made it Enthusiastically clear that he
had not rejected the league, but had
rejected the obligations.
Says Senate Should End War
All the information that has been
brought from abroad first hand to the
President-elect has been that Europe
would allow America to rewrite the
league, to amend it, and do other
things to it, but not TO ignore it. 1t
is just thot nhase of the matter that
has impellied the Presdent-elect to
hold discussions of his plan to funda-
mentals, keeping details for the inter-
national conference that must newt
ably precede the negotiations to make
the plan effective.
When ex-President Taft was here
last week he said that Presidential
Harding's plan would not prove wholly
satisfactory to persons at either ex-
treme in the treaty fight. That state
ment was interpreted to mean that
Senator Harding proposed to use too
little of the Versailles league to please
Mr.. Taft and too much to please Mr.
} Johnson, Mr.. Borah ct al.
Senator Knox said that he saw no
reason why the Knox resolution, termi-
mating the state of war between the
United States and Germany, should not
pass early in the extra session. 1t
was passed by the last Congress and
vetoed by the President, and Senator
(Contlnucd on page three)