Life — November 4, 1920 — page 28: what you’re looking at

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NOVEMBER 4, 1920 Grorce B. Ricnarnson, Vice-President Le Roy Mitten, Treasurer Grorce p’'Urassy, Secretary HIS num- ber of Lire is dated two days after elec- tion, but is ==" obtainable the day be- fore it, so let us speak of the closing days of the campaign. A good deal happened. About October 18th John K. Bangs and Lillian Russell came out strong for Mr. Harding in the public prints, Mr. Bangs declaring that Cox is too shallow for the presidency and that crossroads politicians do not belong in the White House. Miss Russell, who had already spoken from the front porch at Marion, sent one hundred dollars to some- body to have copies of the Declaration of Independence printed and distributed. That is all very well, but the declaration of independence that the public would like to see is one from Mr. Harding. Bet- ting at this writing is 7 to 1 on Harding for President. Cox betters want 8 to 1. It behooves us, therefore, at this last hour to think as hopefully of Mr. Hard- ing as a man and a probable President as we can. A lot of very good Republicans, headed by Herbert Parsons and Hamilton Holt, have bolted. A lot of women, naturally Republicans, among whom stand out Miss Choate, Mrs, mons Blaine and Mrs. Catt, have done the like. A fine collection of Pro-League Republicans came out on Oc- tober 14th for Harding. It was a dis- tinguished company headed by Lyman Abbott, and included the presidents of Washington, Columbia, Brown, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and Harvard Uni- versities, and other eminent college presi- dents and high professors, and Herbert “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY Cuartes Dana Giasox, President 17 West Thirty-first Street, New York London Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. Hoover, Mr. Root, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Wickersham, Bishop Lawrence and Paul Cravath. There were thirty-one of them, and they signed a statement, which con- tained these words: A majority of the’ Senate voted to ratify the League agreement with modi- fications which there is good evidence to show would have been accepted by the other nations; but Mr. Wilson re- fused to accept these modifications, and insisted upon the agreement absolutely unchanged, and Democratic senators sufficient in defeat the Treaty as modified followed Mr. Wilson by voting against ratification. That is substantially the difference between the parties now. The Demo- cratic platform and candidate stand un- qualifiedly for the agreement negotiated at Paris without substantive modifica- tion, . number to This incident illustrates one of the great difficulties of this campaign. If thirty- one gentlemen widely respected, detached considerably from partisanship, desiring only what is best for the country and the world, could sign the above statement believing it to be true, and thousands of honest people who read it believe it to contain glaring untruths, it shows how very difficult it has been in the campaign to keep information separate from misi: formation and sort out reliable facts on which to base a course. To Harvard graduates who knew the statement contained untruths, it was a shock that the president of Harvard Col- lege should sign it. One such graduate, Mr. Gordon Woodbury, of New Hamp- shire, lately Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and a worker for Harvard College, burst out in a letter of remonstrance to President Lowell in which he declared that the assertion in the statement that Mr. Wilson refused to accept any modi- fication and insisted upon the agreement VOL. 76. No. 1983 Eowarp S, Martin, Editor Tuomas L. Masson, Managing Editor F, Dr Sates Casey, Art Editor absolutely unchanged” — was false.” “You know it is,” wrote Mr. Woodbury to Dr, Lowell. “At any rate you said in Manchester in April that it was, and now you say the direct opposite.” In this last outburst one gets a clue to the trouble. The discussion of the League has been going on for considerably more than a year. People’s attitudes have changed on it as the situation has changed, and their memories have not kept up with the shifts of position about it. Of course, Dr. Lowell and the other gentlemen did not knowingly put their names to a state- ment that is “utterly false,” but they sub- scribed to a good deal that is not so. They seemed to base the assertionin the first para- graph above quoted on the final vote on the Treaty in the Senate. When the Senate voted on the League, the President was in seclusion, inaccessible to ordinary counsel- lors and sources of information, and it was hard to tell what he did think or what he would do, but we believe it is true that the Treaty would have gone through then if enough of the Democrats had voted for it, and that enough of them would have voted for it if the President had wished them to. The large fact that Mr. Wilson could have got the Treaty through long ago if he had accepted it on Mr. Lodge's terms is not much doubted. The assertion of the thirty-one that the Democratic platform and candidate insist on the Treaty as it came from Paris with- out substantive modifications, is certainly not true as to the candidate. The Demo- cratic platform is four months old, and things have moved a good deal in four months, but Governor Cox has given in- disputable evidence that the Democratic candidate has moved with them. In his reply to Mr. Root he said not only that he would accept helpful reservations from any source, but added: “I wouht sit down with the members of the United “utterly XUM comicbooks.com!