The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-03-09

Notifications, IS
PRESIDENTS BELIEF
President Wilson's letter Of Monday
evening. written in response to a re-
quest that he confer with Senator
Simmons Of North Carolina, in charge
for the Democratic side of the senate
in current negotiations for compro-
misc. follows In full:
my Dear Senator Hitchcock:
81 understand that one of two OF
your colleagues do me the honor of
desiring to know what my views are
with reference to Article 10 of the
League Of Nations, and the effect upon
the league OF the adoption Of certain
proposed reservations to that article.
] welcome the opportunity to throw
any light upon a subject which has
become SO singularly beclouded by
INTERPRETATIONS and misinterpre-
tations Of every kind.
There Is no escaping the moral
obligations which are expressed In
positive terms in this article OF the
covenant. We won a moral victory
over Germany far greater than even
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 asso-
ciated with US in tho great struggle.
1t did SO because Of cur common pro-
fession and promise that We meant
to establish an organization OF peace
which should make 1t certain that the
Ay~oht~AA ~ oofiNnc uNnIH
check every invasion OF right and
serve to make peace and Justice more
secure by affording a definite tribun-
nj Of opinion to which all must submit
and by which every international re-
adjustment that can not be amicably
Rgreed upon by the peoples directly
concerned. shall be sanctioned. This
promise and assurance was written
into the preliminaries of the armistica
and into the preliminaries of the peace
atself, end constitute one of the most
sacred obligations ever assumed by
any nation or body of nations. 1t Is
unthinkable that America should set
the example OF ignoring such solemn
nnoral engagement.
Keeps Faith With Soldiers.
"For myself, I feel that / could not
look the soldiers of our gallant armies
in the face again If did not do every
thing in my power to remove every OBJ
stacle that lies in the way of tho adop-
ton 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. / should be for
ever unfatihful to them If l did not
do my utmost to fulfill tho high pur-
pose for which they fought.
Il think, my dear senator, we can
dismiss from our minds the idea that
it is necessary to stipulate In connec.
ton with Article 10 the constitutional
methods we should use in fulfilling
our obligations under 1t. We gain
nothing by such stipulations and Sc
cure nothing which is not already Sc
cured. 1t was understood as a matter
of course at the conference in Paris
that whatever obligations any govern
ment assumed or whatever duties 1t
undertook under the treaty would OF
course have to be fulfilled by its
usual and established constitutional
methods of action. Once or twice in
meetings of the conference, when the
treaty was under consideration, res
6TNdllOuS were uduC " IhaI CASSl W
the representatives of individual pow
ers, and those reservations were In
variably received in the way In which
men who have met for business and
not for talk always receive acts Of
scrupulous superogation- listened to
with Indifferent silence, as such men
listen to what Is a matter Of course
and was not necessary to say.
ron ha M nhioctfnn tn ey.
planning again what our constitutional
method Is and that our congress alone
can declare war or determine the
causes or occasions for war, and that
It alone can authorize the use Of the
armed forces Of the United States on
land or on the sea. But to make such
a declaration would certainly be a
work OF supererogation.
qualifications Not Reservations"
II am sorry to say that the reser-
eations that have come under my no.
tice are. almost without exception, not
interpretations of the articles to which
It is proposed to attach them, but in
effect virtual notifications Of those
articles.
ANY reservation which seeks to de-
prive the League of Nations Of the
force of Article 10 cuts at the very
heart and life OF the covenant itself.
Any league of nations which does not
guarantee. as a matter of incontest-
able right, the political independence
and integrity of each of its members
might be hardly more than a futile
scrap of paper, as ineffective in oper
htion as the agreement between Bel
sium and Germany which the Ger
mans violated in 1914. Article 10. as
written into the treaty OF Versailles.
represents the remuneration by Great
britain and Japan. which before the
war had begun to find so many inter
FISTS in common in the Pacific; by
france, by Italy by all the great
lighting powers of the world-of the
old pretensions of political conquest
and territorial ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. 1t is
a new doctrine in the worlds affairs
and must be recognized as there is