The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-04-24

timate that the present opportunity may be seized to bring about an entire revision of the treaty of Versailles. to make it accord with the ideas of the republican administration at Washing ton.
 CURIOUS PARALLEL
 However, all of these recent events may produce curious parallel in American and allied relations. The United States it will be recalled en- tered the war without ascertaining the terms of the secret territorial under standings among the allies. and this oversight proved somewhat embarrass- ing at the peace conference, particu- larly regarding Shantung.
 Now comes the announcement as forecast in these dispatches fortnight ago. that President Harding intends having an American representative join in the sessions of the supreme council
 The President may discover that dur ing Americas absence important de- cisions have been reached among the allies and that these decisions cannot be revoked.
 Prime Minister Lloyd George of Great Britain and Premier Briand of France are meeting in cloistered seclusion They blithely announce that not word of their secret decisions will be pub lished.
 The press makes no complaint about this fashion of deciding world destinies As for public opinion, it is apparently l deaf. dumb and blind. After all the bitter lessons of the war, humanity in this part of the world seemingly is as ready as ever to let it's fate be decided by the clumsy fumblings of the same old fear-stricken diplomacy.
 ALL BUT BLOOD Of course, the apologists for this state of affairs are busy declaring that any new military measures decided upon do not constitute war. But the name does not matter What is about to happen, if present plans carry and If the new exchange between Berlin and Washington should prove fruitless, is that some 100000 men will be with drawn from useful work to shoulder guns while the toll of other hundreds of thousands will be spent in supplying these men at the new front. To this economic waste add the widespread dis ruption of Europe's commerce and you lave all the elements of war except actual bloodshed. And even that may not be long delayed.
 If all this should happen, with the whole world having to pay it will be merely because a bankrupt statesman 1 ship knows no other way out of it's diff faculties.
 Is summons to sanity rom Amerl- ca, so long awaited in vain. about to materialize? Up to this time disap- pointed Europeans have beheld the United States chiefly occupied in her own particular interests like Tap and the petroleum fields of Mesopotamia. Yet these Europeans say that Ameri- ca, through her money power, holds Europe in the hollow of her hand.
 It is held here that a proper word from Washington would reduce to im- potence the German reactionaries who are principally profiting from the ex- isting confusion, and would give en- couragement to the great mass of war-sick. kaiser-hating. peace-desiring Germans. A word from the United States treasury would put an end to the morally comprehensible and legally justifiable, but none the less economi cally insane projects of the allies for repairing the damages of war by re- Hing armies to the colors and stop ping all productive effort
 European stock exchanges recently have been showing an optimistic trend oddly enough, based upon hopes of a returning "wartime prosperity" All of which lends force to the ironical com ment that war, not peace, has become Europe's normal condition.