The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1920-01-08

patriotism and loyalty to his country
he ranks with Washington and Lin
coin. As a presidential possibility
in 1920 we believe he stands high in
the minds of the people of this coun-
try:
Sir, we are told this treaty means
peace. Even so, would not pay the
price. Would you purchase peace at
the cost of any part of our independ-
ence? We could have had peace in
>1776-the price was high, but we
could have had it. James Otis, Sam
Adams, Hancock and Warren were
surrounded by those who urged peace
and British rule. All through this
long and trying struggle, particularly
when the clouds of adversely lowered
upon the cause, there was a cry of
peace-let US have peace. We could
have had peace in 1860. Lincoln was
counseled by men of great influence
and accredited wisdom to let our
brothers-and, thank heaven they are
brothers-depart in peace. But the
tender, loving Lincoln, bending under
the fearful weight of impending civil
war, an apostle of peace, refused to
pay the price, and a reunited country
will praise his name forever more
ho
the price of national honor and ma
tional integrity. Pecae upon any
other basis than national independ-
ence, peace purchased at the cost of
any part of our national integrity, is
fit only for the slave, and even when
purchased at such a price it is a de-
fusion, for it cannot last.
''But your treaty does not mean
peace very far from it. If we
are to judge the future by the past,
it means war. Is there any guaranty
which comes of the control of the war
making power by the people. Yet
what great rule of democracy does
the treaty leave unassailed. The
people, in whose keeping alone you
can safely lodge the power of peace
or war, nowhere, at no time and in no
place, have any voice in this scheme
for world peace. Autocracy which
has bathed the world in blood for
centuries reigns supreme. Demo-
cracy is everywhere excluded. This,
Won COW pooopS Doooo
"Can you hope for peace when love
of country is disregarded in your
scheme, when the spirit of nationality
is rejected, even scoffed at? Yet,
what law of this moving and myster-
ious force does your treaty not deny?
With a ruthlessness unparalleled your
treaty in a dozen instances runs
counter to the divine law of national
ity. Peoples who speak the same Ian
guage kneel at the same ancestral
'tombs, moved by the same traditions,
animated by common hope, are torn
asunder, broken in pieces, divided,
and parceled out to antagonistic ma
lions. And this you call justice. This,
you cry, means peace. Peoples who
have dreamed of independence, strug-
gled and been patient, sacrificed and
been hopeful, peoples who were told
that through this peace conference
they should realize the aspirations of
centuries, have again had their hopes
dashed to earth. One of the most
striking and commanding figures of
the war, soldier and statesman, turn
ed away from the peace table at Yer
sailles declaring to the world, The
promise of the new life, the victory
OF the great humane ideals for which
the peoples have shed their blood
without stint, the fulfillment of their
aspirations toward new information
al order and fairer and better world
are not written into the treaty. No,
your treaty means an injustice, it
means slavery. It means war. And
to all this you ask this republic to be-
come party. You ask it to abandon
the creed under which it has grown
to power and accept the creed of
autocracy, the creed of repression
and force.
s'Mr. President, turn from this
scheme based upon force, to another
scheme, planned 143 years ago in old
Independence hall in the city of Phil
adelphia, based upon liberty 1 like
it better. have become so accus-
toned to believe in it that it is diff
cult for me to reject it out of hand.
have difficulty in subscribing to the
new creed of oppression, the creed of
dominant and subject peoples. / feel
reluctance to give up the belief that
all men are created equal-the eter-
nal principle in government that all
governments derive their Just power
from the people governed. I cannot
get my consent to change the doc
trine of George Washington for the
doctrine of Frederick, the Great,
translated into mendacious phrases of
peace. I go back to that serene and
masterful soul who pointed the way
to power and to glory for the then
= L