Every evening, Wilmington daily commercial., 1921-05-21
GEORGE
HARVEY'S
BLUNDER
HUGHES OR HARvEyr


hearted native OF Vermont, George
Brinton Mcclellan Harvey. who is Mr..
Harding's Ambassador to the Court OF
ST James, has transferred the foreign
policies OF the Administration, bag and
baEgage, to the custody Of the left wing
| or the Battalion OF Death
Speaking at a dinner given by the
Pilgrims. in London Thursday night Mr..
Harvey undertook to show how utterly
absurd any such notion is, that the
United States will enter the League Of
Nations on any terms. and said:
Anybody could see that It follows
then inevitably and irresstibly that our
present Government could not without
| betrayal of It's creators and masters.
and will not, / can assure you, have
anything whatsoever to do with the
League or with any commission or COM
| mittee. appointed by II or responsible to
| II. directly or indirectly. openly or fur
| lively"
Mr.. Harvey not only scraps the
League but he scraps the Permanent
Court of International Justice that
Elihu Root helped 10 establish. More
than that, he serves notice on all the
nations, In the name of the Harding
Administration, that should a contro-
versy In which the United States liz a
party be referred to this Permanent
Court of International Justice for adj
judication the Harding Administration
will refuse TO recognize the courts ex-
istence.
Mr. Harding has never gone so far.
No other responsible spokesman Of the
Administration has ever gone so far.
To find a parallel for Ambassador Har-
vey's sweeping assertions IL Is necessary
TO go TO the state papers of Hiram
Johnson and William Randolph Hearst.
And where does the Harvey speech
leave Charles T. Hughes, who lis Sec
retary of State in the Harding Cahinet7
once upon time the rule prevailed IN
Washington that an Anbas ssadur was
subordinate to Secretary Of State. II
Mr. Harding was speaking for Mr..
Hughes i'm London. MIR. Hughes has
reversed himself since last October
when he joined with thirty other dis
tnguished Republicans in issuing
public statement urging the voters to
support MIR Harding as the surest
method of bringing the United States
into the League.
THE question accordingly" said Mr..
Hughes and these other ssninent Re
publicans including Mr.. Hoover, who
is Secretary of Commerce in the Hard
ing Cabinet, "is not between n League
and no League but whether certain
provisions in the proposed League
agreement shall be accepted unchanged
or shall be changed" The policy that
they proposed was frankly to cali upon
other nations Ito agree TO changes in
the proposed agreement" and they
assured the voters that ''the Republi-
can party is bound by every considera-
ton Of good faith TO pursue such a
course until the declared object is at
tanned"
Does Secretary Hughes know of any
method by which the statement that he
signed on October II. 1920. can be
reconciled with the speech that AM
bassador Harvey made in London on
May 70. 1921? Does the Secretary of
State stand by the principles that he
enunciated last fall or by the principles
that the Ambassador to the Court of
St. James's enunciated this spring? Is
Mr. Hughes in control OF the foreign
policies of the United States or Mr..
Harvey?
IL Mr.. Harvey is in control he should
not be in London or in any European
capital. His place is in Washington
at the head of the State Department
and Mr.. Hughes place is somewhere
else. Possibly Mr.. Harvey is guilty Of
nothing more serious than the indis-
cretion of expressing openly and blunt
ly what lies back in Mr.. Hardings
mind. 1t is likewise possible that he has
tried 10 take advantage of his oppor-
tunities as an Ambassador to force the
Administration into the camp of the
Battalion of Death in matters of foreign
policy. The explanation lies in Wash
ington.
What is certain is that if Mr.. Hughes
is in sympathy with the Harvey speech
he owes il to his own reputation to ex-
punge the statement of October IA from
the record. Either he is Secretary of
State or George Harvey is Secretary of
State. but both cannot be Secretary of
State.-New York World.