Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1923-06-27
NO UNITED STATES.
A World Court Would Have Decided
Against us in 1916.

Ex-senator Albert j. Beveridge, in
speech at Boston on Bunker Hill
day, declared that America still
would be a part of the British En-
pire if the matters in the dispute be
tween the Colonies and the Empire
had been placed before an inter
national court for adjudication. Mr.
Beveridge said
Thank God for Bunker HILL 1t
meant the American nation. If the
matters seemingly in dispute between
Great Britain and her American colo
MES had been submitted to an inter
national court" said Mr.. Beveridge,
there would have been no Bunker
Hill, no Valley Forge, no Yorktown
the United States never would have
existed; and America would be part
of the British Empire to-day.
For, as mere matter of then eX-
listing law. nearly every point in con-
troversy must and would have been
decided against us; and, even as a mat
ter of equity, we must and would have
been held in the wrong on important
issues For instance the British gov
eminent, having defended the Colonies
against the French, it was only fair
|
part of the expense.
While, at the beginning, Pitt, the
elder-the celebrated Earl of Chatham
and others, opposed armed coercion
of our forefathers, that great states
man and practically everybody else in
the United Kingdom turned against us
furiously when the Continental Con-
gress rejected the British proposals of
Cancellation, made three years after
Bunker Hill and Washington an
swered the British offers with the
thunder of the American cannon at
Monmouth. This so enraged Pitt, that,
although fatally ILL., he had himself
carried to the House of Lords, where
he delivered that terrible philippe
against the American patriots. At
the close of his speech Pitt fell faint
| ing to the floor, and died soon after he
had been taken to his home.
IF anybody denies that an interna-
| tional court must and would have de-
cided against us in the beginning, can
anybody doubt that such tribunal, or
any form of peace league, must and
would have held us to be in the wrong
when we scorned the British advances
in 1878?
They offered to right every griev-
ance we had complained of. The Brit
| sh Parliament actually repealed the
laws that had been most offensive to
the Colonies; every American conten-
ton was conceded-excepting only
American independence. Indeed, prac-
| teal independence was proposed. pro-
vided we would haul down the Ameri-
can flag and consent to remain merely
| a nominal part of the British empire.
IF the founding of separate and
absolutely Independent nation was not
| the end really fought for, then, after
1878, the British had solid ground for
| their bitter denunciation of Washing
| ton and the American patriots for con-
| tinuing the war Any international
court must and would have decided
| against us, and if an association of
nations for the maintenance of peace
| had then existed, it would have been
bound to support the British and sup
! press the Americans.
ITO day all the ancient international
| devices that ever have been advanced
hand every one of them has been
urged many times in the past-are
| once more put forward as though they
were something new. without us
| cussing the merits of these age-old
plans this basic fact may be pointed
| out:
| Every one of them has as it's OBJ
| jcct. purpose, and, if successful, its adj
| mitted effect, the maintenance of the
| status quo of the world.
80, in passing upon any or all these
schemes, let us have clearly in mind
| that the simple issue is whether the
| American nation wishes to pledge it
self to help keep all European and
Asiatic boundaries and arrangements
| as they now are.
| "Or, narrow the question still more:
| Is the Treaty of Versailles the last
| word in human wisdom and justice, in
| stead of being what that admirable
| scholar and statesman, the late Lord
Bryce called it, the last word in folly
| and unrighteousness? Before deciding,
| might it not be well to read that docu-
ment which contains more than one
| hundred thousand words, and, as yet
| has been read by very few Americans,
| studied by fewer still, and understood
| by a yet smaller number?