New-York tribune., 1920-05-11
The Oregon Letter

The Oregon Letter
The Oregon letter deepens the
mystery of the Presidents mental
reactions.
The most obvious development of
the last six months has been the
popular swing away from sympathy
with his treaty policy. A Republi-
can candidate for the Presidency
who has made speeches in many
states said the other day that not
more than per cent of his auditors
seemed to favor ratification of the
treaty without sweeping reserva-
tions. Only twenty-one of the forty
seven Democratic Senators followed
the Presidents advice to reject the
treaty because Of the reservations
which the Senate attached to it.
The Democrats Of Massachusetts.
New York and Rhode Island have
refused to support unconditional
ratification. The Democratic party, at
least in the North, is extremely
reluctant to 60 into "a great and
solemn referendum" next fall on the
issue of the Presidents draft of the
treaty against all substitutes.
Yet the President closes his eyes
obstinately to all these signs of the
times. Has he completely lost
contact with the outside world-all
sensitiveness to the ferment of pub
lie opinion? The letter to Chairman
Hamaker reads as if it were written
in the exuberant period of self f-con-
tidence and complacent conscious
ness of mastery-when Mr.. Wilson
was first planning to go to Paris
before the experience of disillusion
ment had begun.
Let us prove to our late asso-
ciates in the war;" the President
writes, chat at any rate the great
majority party Of the nation, the
party which expresses the true hopes
and purposes of the people of the
country, intends to keep faith with
them in peace as we'll as in war"
Strike out the word "late" and this
passage could we'll be taken for
transportation from some piece of
rhetoric antedating the armistice
and tho election of 1918. Leaving
in the word "late," it might be mis-
taken for an excerpt from a speech
made while the peace conference was
assembling and the spokesmen Of
the powers at Paris shared the
Presidents mistaken notion that he,
as first American peace commits
sioner, spoke with unconditional
authority for the government and
people of the United States.
That old delusion survives in the
Oregon missive. Mr.. Wilson reiter-
ates that the Allied powers are en-
titled to our unqualified support of
the peace draft which he signed SIM
ply because he signed it and because
it embodies what he considers the
essentials Of sound peace settle
ment 1--WE cannot in honor" he
says, weaken it or whittle it down."
The President thus flatly denies
the Senate, the coordinate branch of
the treaty making power, and the
people any right to determine what
they may honorably do. Isn't the
treaty their treaty as we'll as his?
He wouldn't admit that in 1918. He
refuses to admit it to-day. The only
true Americanism is his kind of
Amerlcanism. The Republican party
the real majority party in the coun.
try, dissents with practical unanimity
from his fanciful theory that the
Aodg- reservations are utterly in
consistent with the nations honor"
Very powerful elements in the Dem
ocratlc party also dissent from it.
Yet the President is as categorical
and self-centered as ever. My way
or no way. If my solution is re-
jected America will be disgraced
before the world The skies of our
repute and moral integrity will fall.
1t is a pathetic demonstration Of
self-will and immutability of opinion.
Mr.. Wilson has Numbered excom-
munications against the Senate, the
House of Representative and the
Republican party-but without avail.
Now he threatens the backsliding
Democracy. Is 1t docile enough to
undertake at San Francisco. to vim
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