The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-04-08
SENATE TAKES
INITIATIVE FOR
PEACE TREATY
Mark Sullivan Summarizes
Developments-Senators
Go Farther Than Admins
tration on Foreign Policies.
FRENCH LEARN STAND
BY MARK SULLIVAN

fusion as to just what has happened
in Washington this week in the field
OF our foreign relations. So far as
publicly recorded incidents are con-
cerned, the following was the order of
events.
Exactly week ago today. NJ Viviani
went to see President Harding. That
conference was brief and more or less
purely formal. From it, the general
impression is, nothing developed. On
the same day M. Viviani had his meet
ing with Secretary Hughes. This
meeting was longer. Whether it was
more or less conclusive than the talk
with President Harding no one knows.
On Friday NJ. Viviani met Senator
Lodge, chairman Of the senate foreign
relations committee. and now one of
the two or three chiefs of the irrecon-
ciliables. On Saturday Senator Knox
came from his home in Pennsylvania
TO have a three hour conference with
President Harding.
Cables Paris.
On Monday Washington became
aware that M. Lausanne, who is a
member of the Vivian mission and
has participated in his conferences.
had cabled his people in Paris that
the League of Nations and the treaty
OF Versailles have been totally
scrapped by America and that the
Knox resolution for a separate peace
with Germany would shortly be
passed.
On Tuesday most of the newspapers
Of the country printed dispatches to
which high Importance was naturally
ascribed, to the effect that the ad-
ministration's foreign policies had
been determined and that those poll
cies included the complete barring of
the league and the treaty and sepa-
rate peace with Germany through the
Knox resolution. On that day the
news reached what may be called its
highest peak in the direction of fore
casting the more or less immediate
passage of the Knox resolution. The
bulk Of this news came directly or in
directly from irreconciliable leaders
in the senate.
Immediately after the publication
OF this news we all became aware that
it went rather farther than an accurate
statement of the Administrations at
titude about its foreign program. We
learned that the administration, as
distinct from the irreconciliable lead
ers in the senate, has by no means
formulated its foreign program as a
whole; that for the present it has no
policy more formal or definite than
merely to handle each matter as it
comes up with prudence and caution;
that the administration is paying pri-
mary attention to domestic affairs,
and that the coming message to con-
gress will deal more with domestic
than with foreign affairs.
The explanation of all this seems
to be that the irreconcilable leaders
in the senate are more eager and have
gone further than the administration
has. The truth is that just beneath
the surface Of events there is unde-
niably certain amount of strain on
the part of the senate leaders to
achieve a larger part in the initiation
of the foreign policies and to have a
larger dominance in the management
of them than has heretofore been the
case.
Advice Is Role
The traditional and constitutional
role Of the senate in our foreign af-
fairs is to provide advice and consent
to matters in which the executive has
the exclusive power of initiative. The
senate cannot make a treaty, nor be-
gin negotiations for a treaty nor have
itself about a treaty until after the
executive has completed the negotia-
tions Of the treaty and formally turns
it over to the senate for advice and
consent But in the long fight which
the senate has just had with the ex-
ecutiye department under Wilson the
senate has acquired, through its vic.
tory, a degree of self confidence and
probably also a degree of public sup
port which cause it today to take an
attitude toward foreign affairs strong
er than the senate has ever before
taken in its history.
In the present situation the senate
has one of the very few opportunities
that ever came to it to take the mi
tiative in matter within the field OF
foreign affairs. Wars are ordinarily
ended by treaties negotiated by the
executive. That Is the way the pres
ent war was ended. But the senate
ending the present war, is now in a
position to substitute for this treaty
a different kind of ending of the war.
Proposes Initiative
The senate proposes to end the war
by a joint resolution of congress
which does not need to come to them
from the executive, which they can
initiate themselves, and have initial
ed for themselves and which they car
pass themselves by an ordinary ma
jority vote without the two-thirds ma
jority necessary in treaty.
Without any doubt, ii Mr.. Wilson
were president now, and If NJ. Vivian
as spokesman of France had held the
kind of negotiations he has now held
with the senate leaders. Mr.. Wilson
would have made the biggest kind ol
a row Last summer when Mr.. Hard
ing, who was then member of the
foreign relations committee of the
senate as well as a candidate fol
president, said he had been zap
preached by a spokesman of France
Mr.. Wilson promptly wrote him let
ter to the effect that If this were true
grave consequences" would follow
Legally Mr. Wilson was so much ir
the technical right that MIR. Harding
felt forced to explain.