New-York tribune., 1920-09-30
Charges League
Makes Traffic
In W WonnenLegal
Mrs. arthur L. Livermore
Launches Sensational AT.
acK ON the Wilson
Covenant i'm New JERSEY
Children Also Included
Calls Contract More Cruel
and Degrading Than the
Acts of Slave Holders

Mrs. Arthur L. Livermore, the Repub
lican woman leader Of New York, in an
address. TO about two thousand women
in Somervllie, y. j., yesterday. startled
her hearers by charging that the Will
son League Of Nations covenant would
bind the United States TO q contract to
supervise and enforce contracts re-
garding the trat!ckiirg in women and
children.
That the covenant contained such a
clause amazed the entire audience,
causing intense indignation. Mrs. Liv-
ermore said:
more and more the disregard Of
American rights and contempt for
American principles are being revealed
as one studies the contract negotiated
In secret in the Paris Conference and
more and more clearly appear Wood
row Wilson's reasons for concealing it
from the view of the American people
long after nearly every other nation
knew it by heart.
The Offending Paragraph
Paragraph Of Article % Of the
covenant Of the League Of Nations pro
vides: Members Of the league will IN
trust the league with general supervi-
sion over the execution of agreements
with regard to the. traffic in women and
children and the traffic in opium and
other dangerous drugs
After 1000 years OF strides toward
civilization the greatest government in
the world, representing the highest
purpose of humanity, is asked to attach
its signature to contract which not
only recognizes and ratfes but legal
lies traffic in women and children.
slavery was wiped from the pages
Of American history by the sacrifices
Of the Civil War under the leadership
OF Lincoln. and it never will be re-
newed with the consent of right-think-
ing people of this Republic.
vicious as was the former chapter
which told of the slavery OF men and
women Of the black race, the present
proposal draws no line whatever on
traffic in the flesh and blood of Gods
children.
"A more cruel or degrading contract
was never signed or carried into effect
by the shareholders of the jungle.
Mark you the horror of it all! II does
no: profess, or attempt to prohibit or
denounce in any manner, this unholy
traffic. but it attaches the signature Of
the American government to q contract
which recognizes the legality Of the
practice.
A Revolving Spectacle
Not only did the people OF the
United States speak on this subject in
the Civil War but they emphatically
declared themselves in more recent
years by the passage of the Mann act,
which provides for the only supervi-
sion which Uncle Sam tolerates in mat
tiers of this character. and that is su-
pervision over those he sends to United
States prisons for engaging in this
very practice.
Furthermore. what a revolving spec
tacle is presented to the mothers and
daughters of American homes when
they find the President of the United
States and the candidates of the Demo-
cratic party for the Presidency and
for the United States pleading for the
privilege of attaching the seal of the
American government to an agreement
which in the same clause classifies
women and children with opium and
other dangerous drugs.
The whole proposition is so fun
damentally repugnant to the higher