The Butler weekly times and the Bates County record. (Butler, Mo.) 1918-1950, 1920-05-13
THE LEAGUE AN ISSUE
President Wilson Declares Party
Has Nations Honor in Hand
and Says America Must
Redeem Promises to
World.

President said that the Lodge reser-
vations were utterly inconsistent"
with that honor as we'll as destructive
of the role of world leadership
which the United States must as
sumo.
n The only true Americanism, the
President said, was that which puts
America at the front of free nations
and redeems the great promises
which we made to the world" 1t
would be a violation of such promises
he said, to attach reservations to the
treaty which "whittles it down or
weakens it as the Republican leaders
OF the Senate have proposed to do"
II The telegram was in response to
the following message from G. E.
Hamaker of Portland, Ore, chair
man of the Multonomah County
Democratic Central Committee.
Primary election May FL.
Please wire whether you consider
it important to nominate candidates
pledged to ratify Versailles treaty
without Lodge reservations"
The reply of the President follows:
Il think it imperative that party
should at once proclaim itself the
|
tons honor and the advocate of ev-
erything that the United States can
do in the service of humanity, that it
should therefore indorse and support
the Versailles treaty and condemn
the Lodge reservations as utterly ip-
consistent with the nations honor
and destructive OF the world leader
ship which it had established, and
which all the free peoples OF the
world, including the great powers
themselves, had shown themselves
ready to welcome.
1T is time that the party should
proudly avow that it means to try
without flinching, to apply moral and
Christian principles to the problems
OF the world. 1t is trying to &C
complish social. political and inter-
national reforms, and is not daunted
by any OF the difficulties it has to
contend with. Let us prove to our
late associates in the war that at any
rate the great majority party of the
nation, the party which expresses the
true hopes and purposes OF the peo-
pie OF the country, intends to keep
faith with them in peace as we'll as
| in war.
They gave their treasure. their
best blood and everything that, they
valued in order not merely to beat
Germany, but to effect settlement
and bring about arrangements of
peace which they have now tried to
formulate in the treaty OF YER
sailles. They are entitled to our sup
port in this settlement, and in the ar
rangements for which they have
striven.
The League of Nations is the
hope of the world. AS a basis for
the armistice, was authorized by all
the great fighting nations to say to
the enemy that it was our object in
proposing peace to establish a gen.
eral association of nations under spe-
citic covenants for the purpnse- OF at
tording mutual guarantees Of politi-
cal independence and territorial in
tegrity to great and small states
| alike, and the covenant OF the League
of Nations is the deliberate embodi-
ment OF that purpose i'll the treaty of
peace.
The chief motives which led us to
enter the war will be defeated un-
less that covenant is ratified and
acted upon with vigor. We cannot
in honor whittle it down or weaken
It, as the Republican leaders of the
Senate have proposed to do. If we
are to exercise the kind of leadership
to which the founders of the republic
looked forward and which they de-
pended upon their successors to es-
tablish, we must do this thing with
courage and unalterable determine
ton. They expected the United
States to be always the leader in the
defense of liberty and ordered peace
throughout the world, but we are un-
worthy to call ourselves their sue
cessors unless we fulfill the great
purpose they entertained and pro-
claimed.
THE true Americanism, the only
true Americanism, is that which puts
America at the front of free nations
and redeems the great promises
which we made the world when we
entered the war, which was fought,
not for the advantage of any single
nation or group of nations, but for
the salvation of ALL 1t is in this way
we shall redeem the sacred blood that
was spilled and make America the
force she should be in the councils of
mankind. She cannot afford to sink
into the place that nations have usual
ly occupied and become merely one
Of those who scramble and look
about for selfish advantage.
THE Democratic party has now
great opportunity, to which it must
measure up. The honor of the ma
ion is in its hands.
Woodrow Wilson,"