Great Falls daily tribune., 1920-10-17
THE CLOSE OF THE CAMPAIGN.

Two more Sundays after today intervene be-
fore election Tuesday. We are drawing near
the end Of the campaign and looking into the
eyes of election day results. The Democratic
national committee feels that the drift IN these
closing days is strongly in their favor on account
of the .wiggling and wobbling OF the RepuDilcan
candidate on the League OF Nations issue mat
there is some reason for that feeling IS made
very evident by the fact that the Republlcan
candidate, after his Des Moines speech, IN which
he definitely ranged himself alongside Of Borah
and Johnson on this subject and gave his blanket
Endorsement to all they had said in their public
speech on this topic, has IN the last lew days
switched once more and is now talking about an
"association" of nations to prevent war which ne
saws he will form after he has persuaded the
forty nations who are now members OF the
League Of Nations to leave it and scrap the
league and the peace treaty also and make new
treaty. and peace covenant under his directions
in which no obligations will rest on this or any
other government to do anything they do not
wish to do. The fact that Senator Harding has
once more switched to this indefinite line of talk
after his definite declarations at Des Moines that
he was against the League of Nations no matter
what changes or amendments were made to it,
sailles and would recall the American contingent
which is carrying out that treaty by It's Watch
on the Rhine and make separate peace with
Germany just soon as he was president OF
the United States, seems to indicate that he is
somewhat alarmed at the results OF that Des
Moines speech of his and his blanket approval
Of all that Senators Borah and johnson have
said in their public speeches on the subject. Inc
Republican national committee have thought 1t
necessary to get thirty-one prominent support
ers of the League of Nations in the past who are
Republicans first and League of Nations men
afterwards to sign public statement to the ef-
feet that though he slay me yet will trust III
him." and assert that in spite of all they believe
that Harding will enter League of Nations Of
some kind. 1t is pretty feeble stuff and we are
sorry to note that Mr.. Hoover and Mr.. Taft
have been induced to lend their signatures to it.
However, not all the Republican League Of
Nations advocates are following the procession
which trails behind the candidate of their party.
Last spring when the Republican national COM
mittee was advertising a reward for the best
national Republican platform it paid $4,000 to
man in Cambridge, Mass, by the name Of Carl
S. Joslyn who wrote one that pleased the party
pretty cautious about what it said Of the League
of Nations covenant or the national committee
would not have considered it worth $4,000 to
them But now Mr.. Joslyn who wrote it and has
the money of the committee in his pocket has
come out in public and repudiated Harding be-
cause Of his attitude toward the League Of Ma
tons and says re is going to vote for Cox. His
letter is addressed to The Springfield Republican
and it reads as follows:
To the Editor of The Republican:
| wish to go on record as favoring the candi-
dacy Of Gov. Cox, not because he is peculiarly
fitted for the office Of president, but because
he alone stands for what believe to be the only
rational course pursue in the future in
our relations with foreign countries
Until few days ago I had entertained the
hope that Senator Harding's position on the
league issue, although not exactly encouraging
to Republican friends of the league, might be so
interpreted-to use the words of our friend Mr.
Taft-as not to foreclose the possibility of
under Republican administration Mr. Hard
ing's proposal to substitute for the league re-
constructed Hague tribunal did not terrify me,
for felt sure that he would not be SO foolishly
presumptuous as to approach the nations OF
Europe, who are clinging for dear life to the
treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations
covenant, with plan to throw overheard all that
has been so painfully, so laboriously and even so
faulty built up and to turn back to the wretch
ed beginning with nothing more in the way Of a
constructive program than vaguely expressed
intent to put teeth into something. It seemed