Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-02-12
much longer, in view of what Mr.. Hep
burn has disclosed.
OUR SENSITIVE SENATORS

SENATOR BORAH and Senator Knox,
~ crying out with dramatic suddenness
against what they, with characteristic
perversity, call the Cruelty" of the terms
imposed on Germany, ran true to form.
They provide fresh justification for the
, belief that influential opinion in the Sen
ate is often at least six months behind
the rational opinion of the rest of the
world.
Criticism of the peace terms, express
sive of bitter dissatisfaction with many
of the conditions imposed upon the de-
feated peoples, is not new nor is it re-
Elective in any sense Of ro-Germanism.
In the days last July when the treaty
was first submitted to the Senate a Sc
ries of Washington dispatches to this
newspaper explicitly predicted wide
spread antagonism to clauses which
seemed to have been written at Versailles
with the obvious purpose of rendering
the Germans economically hopeless for
all time.
But this view was not based upon airy
thoughts of cruelty. 1t happened that
Germany fought the war with systematic
and deliberate cruelty unparalleled in
human history. Her people had no legiti-
mate claim to the worlds compassion.
Certain economic clauses in the treaty
were objected to because they seemed un-
workable, impossible of even temporary
application and wholly destructive Of
such hopes of future peace as all peoples
had cherished during four almost in
tolerable years.
Since that time many of the abest
leaders of opinion in this country. in
England and in France have expressed
similar convictions. Mr.. Asquith and
even Lloyd George now admit the need
of a policy less rigorous and venge-
full than that implied in the treaty.
General criticism eliminated in the
book lately published by John M. Keynes,
who was chief representative of the
British treasury at the Peace Conference
until he resigned his post in the midst of
the deliberations to express his disap
proval of a new policy of allied imperial
ism which, he believed, was apparent in
the nature and extent of the indemnities
imposed on Germany.
Mr. Keynes, it now appears, was wrong
i'll many of his assumptions. David
Hunter Miller was chief legal adviser to
the American peace commission at Paris.
In formal replies to Mr.. Keynes he is
able to quote the text of the treaty and
prove that the Allies had no intention of
collecting approximately $40,000,0
from Germany. This vast indemnity is
mentioned in the text of the settlement,
but it is referred to as debt. 1t exists
as moral symbol rather than claim.
No ;e;o &c =
What the Germans will be asked to pay
is S10,000,000,00 They cannot be asked
for more unless there is unanimous
agreement in the reparations commission
to press further claims.
The question, therefore, is whether rep
resentatives of all civilized nations, in
cluding the United States, would unite
in policy of oppression such as would
lead to fresh chaos and new eruptions at
the heart of Europe. Recently, too, there
has been an extensive revision downward
of the totals of coal, metals and shipping
demanded from Germany. The end of
that process is not yet.
What is clear is that the Allies are
actually thinking in constructive terms
and acting with forbeardnce unknoaCp
to. the Germans themselves. The old
danger that an enslaved and desperate
remnant Of the German empire might be
driven into the arms of Russia to foment
new wars on civilizs ton is passed.
If Germany withdraws under any pre-
text from the circle of European civili-
cation it will be because of her own desire
for trouble. The regrettable thing is
that the treaty terms seem to have been
made deliberately ambiguous to satisfy
outraged and depressed peoples until a
calmer interval arrived. Germany is ac-
tually being treated with mercy. And
yet Mr.. Borah and Mr.. Knox rise in the
Senate to talk of the cruelty of the
terms.