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The Commoner
APRIL. 1922
11
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however perfect in his life or wise in his
pjan' ii can meet the requirements of the civil
C0US! nf this centuryif' No man aspiring to be
1 n fcan save a world from sin or give it the
iiith to' resist temptation; it requires a God.
8 nHPscending to be a man. Those who would
C0S Sst of His virgin birth, strip Him of the
riifv in which He is clothed, and condemn His
body to the tomb, mistake the world's greatest
n6T?i'ck to God! is the cry of perplexed humanity.
Mn faraway God will answer the purpose; no God
irnnriaoned in an impenetrable past. It mocks
in in his desperation to be told that there may
qqibly be a God of the electrons, indifferent
to man's struggles. The world must have a God
who is personal near enough to hear, and will
in 2 to answer prayer.
When we love God with all the heart, with all
the mind, with all the soul, and all the strength
we will be anxious to know His will and ready
io do it Then, an inspired Word will meet the
want that is felt, and in that Word we can find
a real Christ, the real Son of a real God. We
ran then understand the fullness of.Hia power,
the universality of His appeal, and the enduring
code which He gave to the world.
His resurrection puts the divine stamp upon
His work and confirms His promise to be our in
tercessor at the throne.
TEXT OP THE FOUR ARTICLES AND
TREATY RESERVATION
A Washington dispatch, dated March 24 says:
The four articles of the four Power Pacific
treaty entered into by the United States, France,
Great Britain and Japan, with the preamble
omitted and the Senate "reservation added, fol
low: ARTICLE I
The high contracting parties agree as between
themselves to respect their rights in relation to
their insular possessions and insular dominions
in the regions of the Pacific Ocean.
If there should develop between any of the
high contracting parties a controversy arising
out of any Pacific question and involving their
said rights which is not satisfactorily settled
by diplomacy and is likely, to affect the harmoni
ous accord now happily subsisting between them
they shall invite the high contracting parties to
joint conference, to which the whole subject will
be referred for consideration and adjustment.
ARTICLE II
If the said rights are threatened by the aggres
sive action of any other Power, the high con
tracting parties shall communicate with one an
other fully and frankly in order to arrive at an
understanding as to the most efficient measures
to be taken, jointly and separately, to meet the
exigencies of the particular situation.
ARTICLE III
This agreement shall remain in force for ten
years from the time it shall take effect, and after
the expiration of said period it shall continue to
be in force subject to the right of any of the
high contracting parties to terminate it upon
twelve months' notice.
ARTICLE IV
This agreement shall be ratified as soon as
possible in accordance with the constitutional
methods of the high contracting parties, and
shall take effect on the deposit of ratifications,
which shall take place at Washington, and there
upon the agreement between Great Britain and
Japan was concluded at London on July 13,
1011, shall terminate.
RESERVATION
The Senate Foreign Affairs Committee re
ported the following reservation to accompany
the treaty:
"THE UNITED STATES - UNDERSTANDS
THAT UNDER THE STATEMENT IN THE
PREAMABLE OR UNDER THE TERMS "'OF
THIS TREATY NO COMMITMENT TO ARMED
FORCE, NO ALLIANCE, NO OBLIGATION TO
JOIN IN ANY DEFENSE.
SENATORS' VOTE FOR RATIFICATION OF
PACIFIC PACT
A Washington "dispatch, dated March 24 says
The vote vote ratifiylng the Four-Power Pacific
treaty today was 67 to 27, four more than the
necessary two-thirds. Summary of the vote
follows:
Republicans voting for ratification: Ball,
Jjrandegee, Bursum, Calder, Cameron, Capper,
olt, Cummins, Curtis, Dillingham, Du- Pont,
dge, Elkins, Ernst, Fernald, Frellnghuysen,
ums, xiaie, -i-iarreld, Jones, Kenogg, iveyes,
WWU, Lonroot. Lnflrrn Mp.P.nrmir.k. McCumber.
if??.' Lonroot, Lodge, McCormick, McCumber,
MCKinley, McLean, McNary, Moses, Nelson, New,
dewberry, Nicholson, Norbeck, Norris, Oddie,
Ge, Pepper, Phipps, Poindexter, Rawson,
!l?hir,idge; Smoot' Spacer, Stanfield, Sterling
Wimams0' I?11611' Trammeli; yndcnvooS;
Democrats voting against ratification: Ashurst,
Caraway, Culbertson, Gerry, Glass, Harris. Har-
80n,i?efl,In'HJ.lchcock' Kin&. Overman, Pitt-
ee?i nbiln, Sheppard, Shields, Sim
mons, Smith, Stanley, Swansan, Walsh (Mass.),
Walsh (Mont.), Wilson. 23.
t ePubllcan8 voting against ratification: Borah,
LaFolletto, France, Johnson. 4.
WHAT RATIFICATION MEANS
The principal issue at stake in the Senate's
vote on the four-power treaty yesterday was not
the treaty itself or the work of the Washington
Conference but the ability of the United States
government to conduct foreign relations.
Had the treaty been dofeated, the agreement
for the limitation of naval armament would have
gone by the .board too; because it was morally
contingent on the four-power treaty, and neither
Japan nor Great Britain would have accepted the
reduction in capital ships without the guarantee
of safety to their insular pqssessions. Deplorable
jis all this would have been, there was something
still more important at stake.
The Senate's partisan refusal to ratify the
Treaty of Versailles shook the confidence of the
whole world in the treaty-making power of the
United States. Had the four-power treaty been
beaten, only one conclusion could have been
drawn ,in every Foreign Office that it was a
waste of time to negotiate treaties with a gov
ernment that had proved itself in the most criti
cal circumstances impotent to make treaties. The
triumph of the irreconcilables would have been
complete, because the isolation of the United
States would have been established through the
hopeless deadlocking of its own treaty-making
power.
There was little said about that aspect of the
case during the debate; yet in comparison every
thing else was a mere matter of opinion.
At least a quarter of a century ago John Hay
expressed the belief that no important treaty
would again be ratified by the Senate, because of
the two-thirds rule. Later, as Secretary of State
in President McKinley's Cabinet', he wrote in a
letter to Henry Adams:
"A treaty of peace in any normal state of
things ought to be ratified with 'unanimity with
in twenty-four hours. They wasted six weeks
in wrangling over this one and ratified it with
one vote to spare. We have five or six matters
now demanding settlement. I can settle them
all honorably and advantageously to our side;
and am assured by leading men in the Senate
that not one of these treaties if negotiated will
pass the Senate. I should have a majority in
every case, but a malcontent third would cer
tainly dish every one of them. To such mon
strous shape has the original mistake of the
Constitution grown in the evolution of our poli
tics." Treaties have been ratified since that time in
spite of Hay's pessimistic dictum, but to bring
this about has required all the pressure that the
Administration in office could exert, and when
the Administration has not had a preponderant
control of the Senate the treaties have failed.
In spite of the Senate's pretense of judicial
mindedness in the consideration of treaties, par
tisanship is always one of the controlling factors.
It was partisanship alone which defeated the
Treaty of Versailles, and partisanship all but de
feated the four-power treaty. Most of the Demo
cratic Senators who voted against it may think
that they were uninfluenced by party prejudice,
but they deceive nobobdy except themselves. Had
the four-power treaty been submitted by a
Democrat!.; President they would have supported
It and the opposition to it would have been led
by Henry Cabot Lodge. The Democratic record
is little better than that of the Republicans in
regarc to the Treaty of Versailles, and the coun
tiTwas saved from a diplomatic disaster not
because of their statesmanship but because of
thoir numerical weakness. .
The World has never been among the idolaters
nrhn fmir-nower treaty. It is admittedly defec
of the four powei in. y conference of
an the government whose interests are involved
SyX SirbiuSsothe American .delegates
brSSeit M made it the kcy
fnnSV to ill tie agreements arrived at in the
Sled, "its SweretbWous but the" conse-
quencos of rejection would havo been calamitous
and tho setback to tho peaco of the world would
havo boon hardly less sorlous than that which
fallowed tho Senate's rejection of the Treaty of
Versailles.
The main thing that has been accomplished
by the ratification of tho treaty is tho interna
tional assurance that it is still possible for tho
United States to carry on foreign affairs in spito
of the constitutional obstacles that have boon
erected. Tho treaty-making power Is not in a
state of complete collapse. It functions again,
oven though it functions with a maximum of dif
ficulty, and tho United States is not yet self
oUminatod from tho Society of nations. New
York World.
BUYAN CELEBRATES BIRTHDAY
(From Now York Times, March 20.)
A speech on prohibition by William Jennings
Bryan last night at the Marble Collegiate
Church, Fifth Avenue and Twenty-ninth Street,
attracted so great a crowd that by 8 o'clock, tho
hour set for the meeting, the church doors were
locked and police reserves wore sent for to
keop tho crowds otitsido under control. Tho
meeting had been arranged by sociotios inter
ested in tho prohibition movement, with Mrs.
D. Leigh Colvin of the National Temperanco
Society as Chairman of Arrangements.
Mr. Bryan declared that although ho was 02
years old ho expected "to live to oeo the day
when there will be no saloons undor tho flag
of any civilized country." "We havo won our
fight and we have to hold what wo havo won,"
h'e said. "Don't bo suprised If tho law is not
enforced in every case. Every law is violated
to some extent. This Is the greatest moral re
form ever brought about In the world's history.
"It will not be long before tho United States
will inform Great Britain that if she really
wants our friendship there are other ways of
holding it than by using her flag to protect
bootleggers in the bringing of whisky to this
country. Would we stand for it if Gre.t Bntai.i
should use an island fifty miles away as a pi
rate base?
"American citizens are going to Nassau to
conspire to bring whisky here under tho British
flag. We ought to pass a law that whenevor
a citizen of this country goes out of tho country
to conspire against the United States he should
never be allowed to return here as a citizen.
"The newspapers say we are going to havo
floating palace outside of the three-mile limit.
Do these people think that when they get out
side of three-mile limit they can sail under a
pirate's flag? This nation will never allow any
such conspiracy. And if a ship flying tho British
flag and carrying liquor here is sunk there will
be no war.
"The newspapers every day In their columns
are encouraging lawlessness. They are not
brave enough to violate the laws themselves, but
they are cowardly enough to encourage others
to do it. Don't charge lawlessness on prohibi
tion. Think what crime there would be if
drunkenness were widespread."
Mr. Townley, who invented tho nonpartisan
league, has given up his original tactics. Ho
says that he has found it impossible to get tho
opposition to discussing the league program.
It insisted on talking about the league. So
now he proposes to buy the politicians, whom
he blames for nonsuccess, by giving them the
offices in exchange for their promises to put
his program into effect. Those who have con
tended that Mr. Townley is a mere tyro at the
politiqal game have been given added reasons
for their belief.
The king of the bootleggers in Nebraska turn
ed recently to bank robbing, was caught and con
victed. He says that he changed trades because
bootlegging did not pay. When he pulled through
in safety with a cargo of whisky from Canada
he made a huge profit, but he was caught so
often and had to pay- so much for attorney fees
and fines that he had nothing left. This ought
to be the best sort of testimony to prove that
whisky-running is not the popular sport we have
been told by propagandists.
The federation of labor council has .added,
nothing -to its reputation for wisdom by solemn
ly urging tho repeal of tho Volstead law on the
ground that it has increased taxes and has shown
Itself incapable of proper enforcement. Tf there
is any oleirfent in the country that has suffered
morn economically from tho reign of the liquor
traffic in this country than the labor element, It
would be interesting to have it pointed out. Pro
hibition has been economic emancipation for mil
lions of workers.
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