New-York tribune., 1920-03-09

OIL your cOlleaSueS 40 me the
honor of desiring to know what
my views are with reference to
Article X of the league of nations
and the effect upon the league Of
the adoption of certain proposed
reservations to that article. I
welcome the opportunity to throw
any light l can upon a subject
which has become so singuarly
beclouded by misapprehensioB and
neutrality-suspicious. of every kind.
There is no escaping the moral
obligations which are expressed in
positive terms in this article Of
the covenant. We won moral
victory far greater even than the
military victory won on the field
Of battle, because the opinion of
the whole world swung to our
support and the support Of the
nations associated with us in the
great struggle. 1t did so because
of our common profession and
promise that we meant to estab-
lish "an organization of peace
which should make it certain that
the combined power of free ma
tions would check every invasion
of right and serve to make peace
and justice the more secure by
affording a definite tribunal of
opinion to which all must submit
and by which every international
readjustment that cannot be ami
cably agreed upon by the peoples
directly concerned shall be sane
toned"
Obligation Held Sacred
This promise and assurance
were written into the prelim-
inaries of the armistice and into
the preliminaries of the peace
itself and constitute one of the
most sacred obligations ever as
sumed by any nation or body of
nations. 1t is unthinkable that
America should set the example
of ignoring such solemn moral
engagement.
For myself, l feel that I could
not look the soldiers of our gal
liant armies in the face again if
l did not do everything in my
power to remove every obstacle
that lies in the way of the adop-
tion 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. I should be forever
unfaithful to them if I did not do
my utmost to fulfill the high pur-
pose for which they fought.
Stipulations Unnecessary
think, my dear Senator, we
can dismiss from our minds the
idea that it is necessary to stipu-
late in connection with Article x
the constitutional methods we
should use in fulfilling our obliga-
tions under it. We gain nothing
by such stipulations and secure
nothing which is not already Sc
cured. 1t was understood as a
matter of course at the conference
in Paris that whatever obligations
any government assumed, or what
ever duties it undertook under the
treaty, would, of course, have to
be fulfilled by it's usual and estab-
lished constitutional methods of
action. Once or twice in meetings
of the conference, when the treaty
was under consideration, 'reserva-
tons were made to that effect by
the representatives of individual
powers, and those reservations
we're invariably received in the
way in which men who have
met for business and not for talk
always receive acts of scrupulous
supererogation, listened to with
Indifferent silence, as such men
listen to what is matter of course
and was not necessary to say.
There can be no objection to
again explaining what our consti-
tutional method is and that our
Congress alone can declare war
or determine the causes or occa-
sions for war, and that It alone