Life — July 17, 1919 — page 18: what you’re looking at

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114 JULY 37 “While there is Life there's Hope" VOL. 74 Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY 1919 Anpaew Mitiee, President and Treasurer No. 1916 James S, Metcatre, Secretary 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York English Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C, | was com- plained last week that the times were dull and the news tame, but since then a great deal has happened, with some more to come. The Peace Treaty has been signed, and Mr. Wilson is on his way home. A preliminary wallow in Prohibition has begun. A big dirigible has come here from England, and Dempsey has licked Wil- lard. As for the last, it was a poor fight. As for the dirigible, to our mind dirigibles are just big Willards, and always will be; capable, with luck, of being useful, but never likely to be much good in a real competition. Now as to the Treaty. That it had been signed was a very big piece of news, and of course it wa and the signers’ pictures reprinted, and everything that had ever been said about it was said over again. It is not offered to mankind as a perfect docu- ment, but rather with apologies for its imperfections. It suits nobody, but it suits a vast number of people better than no treaty, and it impresses very many respected minds as an achieve ment of the highest order. President ‘liot calls it “by far the most promis- ing agreement among the freer and more progressive nations that has ever been worked out.” Mr. Root, called into consultation by some of his fellow Republicans in the Senate whose at- tacks on the Treaty were not being prospered, paid it very handsome com- pliments. neral Smuts was so far from satisfied with it that he put out discussed, a printed explanation of why he signed it. But sign it he did, not, he said, “because I consider it a satisfactory document, but because it is impera- tively necessary to close the war, . . . and because I feel that the real work of making peace will only begin after this Treaty has been signed.” He saw in the Treaty “simply a liquidation of the war situation in the world,” and in divers particulars it seemed to him too harsh. But even his regrets and criti- cisms were full of hope of what the Treaty would lead to. AL SMUTS is an illustrious person, and belongs in any group of contemporary wise men that ex- perts would compose. When he signed the Treaty in spite of his objections to it, he set an example to our Senate. How much the recalcitrant senators will induce their fellow fathers to balk at the Treaty remains to be seen; but the trouble may be over in a single round, as it was in the Willard- Dempsey fight, and the thing for the Senate to do is what General Smuts did; to take the Treaty of objections, some of them, possibly, sound, and ratify it as an indispensable process of the re-creation of the poli cal world. That that will be done is the best bet. That any amendments or reservations will be successfully pinned on to the Treaty does not seem likely. The objections to delaying the peace of the world are graver and surer for all hands than the objections as it is, in spite to anything the Treaty contains. There are provisions in it that possibly may be troublesome, Shantung being the worst, but the troubles that would fol- low its rejection are not merely pos- sible, but certain, ND now we have Mr. Wilson back, and of course there will be inter- esting talk about him, and much dis- cussion and much said that is not so. For example, the Sun speaks of “ the terms of peace which might have been agreed upon months ago, had it not been for the determination of Mr. Wil- son to weave among the paragraphs of the Treaty his covenant of a League of Nations, framed to please Europe at the expense of the United States.” That is an old story, but not too old or too fallacious for the Sun to use. It is denied in general and in detail by Frank Simonds in the Tribune of June 20th, as follows: There seems to be a widespread belief in this country that the Presi- dent by his incessant urgings of the League of Nations actually delayed the progress of settlement of terms upon the material problems. This is totally inexact. When Mr. Wilson reached Europe, in December, he did not find France and Britain with programmes ar- ranged or with policies agreed upon. On the contrary, neither country had framed a programme jointly or sepa- rately. The President did not bring his League of Nations plan to Europe and force it upon a reluctant or hos. tile conference. Before he had even reached Europe Great Britain had decided to champion this great ex- periment, and many British minis- ters had taken their turn at devis- ing actual machinery, for the President had not gone beyond the vaguest conception of a world league. If the French were frankly incred- ulous and openly critical, they were, on the other hand, totally unready with a programme for the Peace Conference, and their own plans were not disarranged by Mr. Wil- son's purposes. At all times and under all circumstances the League of Nations part of the business of the Peace Conference was in more comicbooks.com