AMERICA'S ATTITUDE

Evening Post, Volume XCVIII, Issue 115, 12 November 1919, Page 5

AMERICA'S ATTITUDE

BBITISH PREPONDERANCE

FEARED,

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SAN •FRANCISCO, 14th Oct.

A great campaign is proceeding against the League of Nations for the past two weeks. Senator Hiram W. Johnson, .former Governor of California, has been touring the West in what appears to be a very successful attempt to rouse sentiment against the League. The Senator, formerly a Roosevelt Progressive, but now back in the Republican fold, is an able and ambitious man, and it is openly, said that his real objective is the Presidential chair, though possibly not at the first opportunity. It is abundantly clear that much of the opposition to the League is purely and simply electioneering, but that view does not cover the whole ground. There is something in the "flaws" that political ingenuity has discovered, and when these ,are added, in embellishments, to an appeal to the prejudice of the mob, support in the North-West is obtained; Americans are keenly desirous that the pot should melt most thoroughly, and when the Opposition leaders whisper the suspicion that the Administration is pro-English, the strongest feelings are aroused, and reasonable Americanism may become perverted. Shrewd observers . think that if the Administration trims the Treaty somewhat, the trouble will blow over and the document be ratified. The Republicans are in a majority in both Houses, however, and prophecy is very unsafe. Here is the case for the opposition : Under the present arrangement, the Briitish Empire would /have more power in the League of Nations, more to say and to do, than the United States, and the Americans will not accept such a thing as just and right. Why, it is |. asked, should the United States, with more sovereign citizens than all the sovereign subject! of the British Empire, have less .to say than Britain ? From the American viewpoint that question is unanswerable. President Wilson speaks internationally. He oontends that the United States cannot live her life selfishly aloof from the.rest of the world. Johnson claims to speak as an American. He says that the United States went into the war to gain nothing temporal, and gained nothing temporal. The Senator claims that the European nations' and Japan did not sit at the Conference table unselfishly, and while they were pretending to be actuated by the same i lofty motives of the President, they were grabbing right and left, each astute diplomat thinking only of his own country. America is disinterested. She does not ■want new territories or new peoples. But, before Wilson went to Paris, the cards had been stacked on him. Treaties, of -which he knew nothing, had been entered into. It was there that he made his great mistake. He refused to take Congress and the American people into his confidence. He suffered the treaties to be written into the covenant, and came home and told the people that they must accept the instrument as it was framed in Paris, without reservations or amendments. In other words, the United States must lend the weight of her armed forces, _her blood, to protecting the boundary lines, divisions, and distributions •which were agreed upon in Paris. The United States- must dbnssnt to, the Shantung agreement, must fight an "undisclosed war* in Siberia, the nature of which the people know nothing, must police the coal mines of Silesia, must keep Americans on the Rhine for fifteen years, must land troops at Trau in Dalmatia, to quell a disturbance of whichtha United Sta.te3 knows nothing and has no interest. In fine, the United States must be embroiled in every controversy in Europe and Asia, willy nilly. Controversies are already raging in those countries. ' : . A vote on the Shantung amendments is expected in a week or ten days. It is being proposed to deal ,with the "six-to-one" amendment moved by, Senator

Johnson, which aime *i equalising Bri-' tish and American voting strength oß' the League of Nations. JOHNSON ANSWERED. Mr. Henry Frank addressed a crowded meeting here last night in defence of the League. Referring to Mr. Johnson's warning that the League would be another Holy Alliance,- Ke said : "Let us admit that the action of great nations •in adding hundreds of thousands of squaw miles to their domains is a grab and a steal. Do the Senators tell us "what should have been done? Are they fearful less certain great financial interests here will not have a finger in the game of France and Italy? Are not. jealous of Great Britain? Why should we be? Because the Holy Alliance one hundred years ago destroyed. revolutions, is that an argument ? Because stealthy monarchs perverted treaties in 1821 j is that a. sign that honest men cannot keep their word ? In our age, monarchs are being hurled from their thrones by people who cry for justice and liberty. It is grossly absurd to conjure up the past and its betrayals in an age that has democraeyofor its watchword." • ■■-- ■■•;■ t t Mr. Frank defended Britain's ■ foreign policy. Why, he asked, had Senator Johnson so much to say against .Great Britain and so little to say against Germany? ■•'■ ~ Dealing with, Shantung,;,he said it would bo better to let Japan expand to Asia than to Europe. The argument against the use of American, troops in j Siberia looked very strong on the face of it, but those soldiers were-there to keep the waves of the Bolshevik horror ' from creeping over the world. Each nation was to send 7SOO troops/ . Japan sent 70,000, and in a %horb while she would have seized the richest part of Russia, with which she would have overawed Europe. To withdraw would be disastrous, as it would, permit Siberia to be possessed by Japan. ' .Why denounce Shantung, he asked, and keep our eyes closed to Siberia?