New Britain Herald Newspaper, November 1, 1920, Page 5

POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT 8][a][u](a] W CHARLE’S W. ELIOTS REPLY To The Thirty-one Republican Defenders of Harding’sPosition on During the past few days a good deal of light has been shed on the patriot’s duty at the coming election ; because the moral issue in the campaign has been made clearer. To this clarification the Republican candidate for the Presidency has con- tributed much, and so has the statement lately issued by thirty-one eminent Republicans. If this ight can be carricd into the minds and hearts @f a few millions of voters in the doubtfu! states during the next fourteen days, a decisive verdict will be ren’med on November 2nd. What is the main condition or fact concerning which the American voters are to render a verdict? The main fact is that a small group of Republican Senators have prevented the American people from doing their part in the great enterprise which was devised and proposed by the International Confer- ences at Paris, the reasons given for their action by the members of the)group being so selfish, mean and cowardly that they together constitute a slan- der on the national character. Those Conferences developed a Covenant for a League of Nations which was the embodiment of ideals long cherished by political and religious philosophers, but now first put into practicable shape, the leaders in that merciful undertaking being American statesmen and scholars. ’ For a year and a quarter already the Ameri- can people have been prevented from doing their part towards winning the fruits of the military vic- tory, from standing faithfully by their comrades in arms, from promoting the reduction of armaments, the destruction of the military class, the abolition of secret diplomacy, and the prevention of war by dealing promptly and publicly im international bodies with incipient causes of war. This is the mortifying and sickening fact, which has now gone into history. Who did this evil thing? The group of Senators who defeated ratification. The main concern at the coming election of evcl;‘y believer in democracy, of every man who has confidence in the magnanimity, courage, and good faith of the American people as a whole, of every man who thinks that all honorable and profitable business is founded on the complete "fulfillment of obligations oral or written, is how the government and people of the United States can be rescued from this thralldom, placed again in honorable co-opera- tion with the forty odd nations already in the League, and restored to their natural position in the world as the leading advocates of liberty, jus- tice, and peace for all men. The precise question !:efore the intelligent and conscientious voter today is, “For which candidate shall I vote, in the hope of restoring my country to its rightful position among the nations? The Republican candidate was selected by the very group of Republican leaders who have put this country into'its present humiliating and im tent position,”a1® he is sure to be their tool. he Republican platform actually commends those same Republicaan leaders for their action in the Senate. The Democratic platform, on the other hand, approves and supports the revised Covenant and Treaty ; and the Democratic Convention nominated a man who declares that he is in favor of carry- ing the country into the League of Nations with or Prof. Irving Fisher, of Yale University. Carrie Chapman Cast, Woman Suffrage Leader, Herbert Parsons, Ex-Chairman N. Y. State Republican Committee. Theodore Marburg, ex-Republican Minister to Beolgium, Alexander Graham Bell, Inventor of the Telephone. Dr. O. W. Eliot, President-emeritus Harvard University. Roger Babson, Fconomist and Statisticlan. Rabbi Stephen 8. Wise, > Col. €. W. Whittiesey, leader of the“Lost Battalion.” Dr. Benjamin Ide Wheeler, Presiden-emeritas of California University. NEW BRITAIN DAILY HERALD, MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 1620, POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT. 0 ) ) 0 55 6 5 D TG e e e D ) D ) o ) ) O POLITICAL ADVERTISEMENT theLeague of Nations By EX-PRESIDENT ELIOT (Harvard University) October 19, 1920. without modification therein. The Republican candidate si in favor of staying out of the League; candidate is in favor of getting in. At this point, I must confess, that T am unable to understand how any believer in the American sort of liberty with security can hesitate about his choice. That choice should be, this time at least, the Democratic Party and its nominees. And yet, a few days ago I read a careiuily drawn statement sign bedy thirty-one men, with most of whom I have been associated in works concerning education, public welfare, and peace, who give the opposite advice to their countrymen. These men seem to be unanimously in favor of a League of Natons, but at the same tme recom- mend their countrymen to put into the Presidency a man who rejccts the only League of Nations . which has been actually brought into existence and is functioning. They advise voting for the man selected by the very group of Republican leaders who brought the present disgrace on the Republic. What effect should that remarkable statement have on new voters, on women voters who want to make the right use of their new power come to them under circumstances of great difficulty, and on the millions of voters whose attachment to party is not impregnable? I must try to indicate with accuracy just what effect that statement ought to have on open minds and generous hearts. There are severai points in the statement itself which should be remarked by every person liabie to be influenced by it. First, the following state- ment does not conform to well-known facts: The question is “Whether we shall join (an interna- tional association) under an agreement containing the exact provisions negotiated by President Wilson at Paris, or under an agreement which omits or modifies some of those provisions that are very objectonbale to great numbers of the American people.” This is not now the question, and never has been since the revised Covenant and Treaty were laid before the Senate. President Wilson has repeatedly stated his readiness to accept modi- fications which do not destroy the effectiveness of the Covenant and Treaty. This incorrect affirma- tion in regard to the attitude of President Wilson is repeated in the following sentence: “But Mr. \Wilson refused to accept these modifications and insisted apon the agreement absolutely unchanged.® The same point is insisted upon in the following sentence: “The Democratic platform and candi- date stand unqualifiedly for the agreement nego- tiated at Paris without substantive modification.” This is a misleading statement about the Demo- cratic platform and candidate, which is not im- proved by resort to the use of an obscure adjec- tive, “substantve” before thie word “modification.” The statement then makes two quotations, one from the Republican platform and the other from Senator Harding’s speech of August 28th, both describing in loose terms a new kind of interna- tional association to preserve the peace of the world, for the adoption of which within any reasonable period there s obviously no chance whatever. Hav- ing approved of these vague and impracticable proposals, the statement neglects to inform those who read it that Senator Harding has lately de- clared with all the explicitness of which he is capable, that he rejects the Covenant of the League of Nations altogether. This suppressed informa- tion looks pertinent for a voter who is trying to make a patriotic choice between the two candidates. The statement proceeds to denounce Article X ;of the Covenant on the ground that the Article “certainly binds every nation entering into it to go to war whenever war may be necessary to preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of any member of the League against external aggres- sion.” As ground for this denunciation, the state- ment quotes a portion of the first sentence in Article X, as follows: (shall) preserve as against external aggression the territoral integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League.” It omits to quote the all-important second sentence in Article X as follows: “In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled,” which defines just what is to happen under the League of Nations Covenant if any case of such external aggression or of danger thereof shall arise. This failure to take note of the second sentence in Article X is by no means peculiar to this group of thirty-one eminent Republicans; it has characterized almost all the adverse discussion of that indispensable Article. The Article does not bind a member of the League to go to war against its will or against”its interest, real or imagined. It only promises that the Council shall advise upon the means by which the obligations incurred under the Article’s first sentence shall be fulfilled. The statement rfeglects to mention that action on all mportant measures brought forward in the Assembly or Council must be unanimous; so that every nation has an an absolute veto on action in either Assembly or Council. The statement in this way conceals the absurdity of the apprenen- sions expressed by the Republican Senators who defeated ratification, lest the League should set up a super-state, impair the Monroe Doctrine, impose huge war costs on the United States, and send millions of American boys to die all about the world in causes which did not concern them. This is certainly not a candid way of dealing with the voters whom the signers of the statement wish to hold in the Republican Party or bring into it. After referring to the signers’ objection to Article X as a “vital” cbjection, the author of the statement under consideration launches _he f{ol- lowing sentence, far the wisest in the whole docu- ment but completely inconsistent with everything Mr. Harding has said about the Covenant and Treaty: “The conditions of Europe make it es- sential that the stabilizing effect of the treaty al- ready made between the European Powers shall not be lost by them, and that the necessary changes be made by changing the terms of that treaty rather than by beginning entirely anew.” The statement then says that Mr. Harding is willing to follow that course, and in supportaof that affirmation quotes an extremely involved and evasive para- 'graph from Mr. Harding’s speech of August 28th. A fair sample of that paragraph is the following un- broken or continugus utterance: “it (the League) THE COMMITTEE OF Pro-League Independents Robert E. Speer, Secretary, Presbyterian Board of Forcign Missions. Dr. Frank Crane. James Bronson Reynolds. Rev. Henry S, Stimson. Richard R. Bowker. Moorfield Storey. Katherine Lee Bates, Professor of Wellesley, Hamiiton Hilt, Editor of The Independent, Dr. Henry C. King, President of Oberlin Collcge. Dr. W. A. Nellson, President of Smith College. D ) ) 5 ) ) i} can be amended or revised so that we may still have a remnant of the world’s aspirations in 1918 builded into, the world’s highest conception of helpful co-operation in the ultimate eearlization.” Again, no mention is made of contradicting utter- ances made by Mr. Harding since August 38th. The next sentence of the statement contains the | signers’ astonishing conclusion: “We therefore be- lieve that we can most effectively advance the cause of international co-operation to promote peace by supporting Mr. Harding for election to the Presi- dency.” {et all new voters, women voters, Indepen- dents, and Republicans who are in doubt, consider whether this statement of thirty-one emnient Re- publicans is candid, whether its fundamental pre-.. mises are true or false, whether its reasoning is. | sound or specious, and whether its conclusion is sane and patriotic, or injudicious, dan%eroul for the country, and at bottom immoral. 'he thirty- | one signers of the statement are all honorable men. . How they signed such a paper is a mystery which cannot be discussed here and now. The conclusion of the statement of the thisty- one eminent Republicans just quoted coatains the attractive phrase “advance the cause of interna- tional co-operation to promote , peace.” Where ' does that noble idea come from? From the pre- amble of the League of Nations Covenant, as fol-, lows: “The High Contracting Parties in order to promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security (1) by the accept- ance of obligations not to resort to war, (2)by the prescription of open, just and honorable relations | between nations, (3) by the firm establishment of understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among Governments, and (4) by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for ' all treaty obligations in the dealings of organized peoples with one another, Agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations.” If the new voter or the- doubtful voter who loves the real America as he" loves his mother or his wife, will take into his nrind and heart that preamble to the League of Nations * Covenant, he will not vote to place the control -of the government of the United States in the hands - of the apostate Senators who defeated ratification. The Republican managers are today trying to shift the main issue of the campaign from the “sentimental” verdict on the League of Nations to the business interests of the country, such as national administrative economy, the labor prob- lem, reduced taxation, and so forth. In making this change they are counting on dense ignorance and indifference and woeful lack of thinking power among American business men; for every compe- tent observer of European and American indus- trial and financial conditions today testifies that: good functioning by the League of Nations is’ essential to the restoration of Europe and therefore . to the prosperity of America. If the League of Nations fails, thers cannot be any reduction of national and state expenditures or of taxation in the United States, or any satisfactory settlement of the labor problem. In short, unless the moral issue is settled right, nothing else will be. This is the uniform testimony of philosophy and history for both individuals and nations. . Miss Mary E. Wooley. President of Wellesley. Miss M. Carcy Thomas, President of Bryn Mawr. Col. Henry W. White, cx-City Manager of Dayton, Ohto. John F. Moors. Dr. Harvey Cushing. Mrs. J. Malcolm Forbes. Norman Hapgood. Prof. Ellsworth Huntington of Yale University. Ju~ge James W. Remick.