New-York tribune., 1921-05-29
Silesian Dispute Reviewed
In New Book About Treaty
Experts Testimony, Edited by Colonel House
Shows American Representatives Favored
Giving Contested Area to Poland

tion's work, 1t was not what the rep
resentatives of other countries put into
the treaty which made it unacceptable
to the Senate and the country, but
what the President and his advisers
themselves put into it. Mr.. Lansing
ahsolved himself from any responsible
ity for the fatal errors made at Paris,
He produced records to prove that he
opposed them at the time they
were being made. His book is, there
fore, genuine and exceptionally valu-
able contribution to American history.
There is very little of Mr.. Lansing's
openness and critical candor in the
book which Colonel House has helped
t. edit. The Colonel could also doubt
less, exculpate himself to a consider
able extent, if he cared to do So He
and the President parted ways at Paris,
on what issues the world has been left
| to guess. The chapter which the Col
! onel has furnished, entitled "The Yer
sailles Peace in Retrospect" throws no
| AASAt CiA WIG I0RSuIS. IL IS ludThSUlN
non-committal in other respects.
Colonel House thinks it was a mis-
fortune that the Paris Conference as
| sembled too late and spent too much
time on preliminaries. He says that
the economic and financial terms
should have been made as soon after
the arnistice as possible. Is there
hint here that they should not have
been pushed aside to give priority to
the League of Nations covenant? The
| Colonel believes that the sum total of
reparations should have been fixed i'm
mediately. He regrets that the con-
with the freedom of the seas. Yet the
essential aims of American policy at
Paris are not discussed, or the mis-
judgments which blasted all hope of
ratification at Washington. Colonel
House owes his countrymen a hook as
searching and candid as Mr. Lansing's.
When will he write it?
"The Making of the League of Ma
tions" is the subject of chapter con-
tributed by David Hunter Miller, the
principal legal adviser of the Ameri-
can delegation. 1t contains much in
teresting matter. Mr.. Miller says that
President Wilson took a draft of the
covenant to Paris, but doesn't indicate
what it contained Mr.. Lansing has
told Us that it was combination of
the Phillimore and House drafts, with
what afterward became Article x
added. Like Mr.. Lansing, Mr. Miller
was dissatisfied with Article X in its
original form, especially that part of
it which gave the League of Nations
power not only to guarantee existing
political boundaries, but to remake
boundaries later and guarantee them
over again.
Mr.. Miller and Mr.. Hurst, the Brit
ish legal adviser, drew the first cove
nant submitted to the League of Ma
tions Commission. The former says
he was surprised that the President ac-
cepted it, because, the evening before
expressed dissatisfaction with it and
a preference for his own draft with
some notifications"
The Hurst-Miller draft was not sat-
isfactory to Mr. Miller himself He
wanted to protect the Monroe Doctrine
and he wrote in Paris what he de-
scribes as "a rather severe confidential
criticism of President Wilson's plan"
This criticism subsequently fell into
the hands of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations and was made public
AS to Article K, which wrecked the
treaty, Mr.. Miller put an entirely diff
ferent valuation on it from President
Wilson's. He admits that at went
further than public opinion on this side
OF the ocean was willing to 60" Amer
lean opinion, he says, forced Mr.. Will
son to recede on the Monroe Doctrine
and to offer an amendment to the COW
enant making show of safeguarding
it. But American opinion couldn't
bulge him on Article K. With him, to
the bitter end, it was Article K or
nothing Mr.. Miller was not bitter
ender of that sort. He says that as
far as the Lodge reservations made
changes in the league "they were Of
a wholly minor character. They left
its structure intact and they would
have interfered with it's workings not
at all"
This is an absolute dissent from Mr..
Wilson'S conception and policy. Mr..
Miller discloses the fact that neither
the President nor Colonel House voted
In the League of Nations Commission
on the Japanese proposal for recog-
milton of race equality. There was a
majority for the proposal. But the
British delegates announced that they
were instructed by their government
not to accept any such declaration.
Thereupon it was dropped. Mr.. Wilson
declined to tell the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee whether the
American delegates did or did not sup
port the Japanese proposal. We also
learn from Mr.. Miller's account that the
United States favored Germany's i'm
mediate admission into the League of
Nations.
l. The territorial settlements are dealt