In the cool airs of the North Smith and I have honestly tried to reduce
the league situation to intelligible terms. Those voters who may feel
constrained to regard the election as a referendum of the league will
do well to follow our example in pondering the speeches of acceptance
of the two candidates. Before these words are read both Governor Cox
and Senator Harding will doubtless have amplified their original
statements, but these are hardly susceptible of misinterpretation as
they stand. Mr. Harding’s utterance is in effect a motion to lay on the
table, to defer action to a more convenient season, and take it up _de
novo_. Governor Cox, pledging his support to the proposition, calls for
the question. Mr. Harding defines his position thus:
With a Senate advising, as the Constitution contemplates, I would
hopefully approach the nations of Europe and of the earth, proposing
that understanding which makes us a willing participant in the
consecration of nations to a new relationship, to commit the moral
forces of the world, America included, to peace and international
justice, still leaving America free, independent, and self-reliant,
but offering friendship to all the world.
If men call for more specific details, I remind them that moral
committals are broad and all-inclusive, and we are contemplating
peoples in the concord of humanity’s advancement. From our own
view-point the programme is specifically American, and we mean to be
American first, to all the world.
Mr. Cox says, “I favor going in”; and meets squarely the criticism that
the Democratic platform is not explicit as to reservations. He would
“state our interpretations of the Covenant as a matter of good faith to
our associates and as a precaution against any misunderstanding in the
future,” and quotes from an article of his own, published in the New
York _Times_ before his nomination, these words:
In giving its assent to this treaty, the Senate has in mind the fact
that the League of Nations which it embodies was devised for the sole
purpose of maintaining peace and comity among the nations of the
earth and preventing the recurrence of such destructive conflicts as
that through which the world has just passed. The co-operation of
the United States with the league, and its continuance as a member
thereof, will naturally depend upon the adherence of the league to
that fundamental purpose.
He proposes an addition to the Covenant of some such paragraph as this:
It will, of course, be understood that, in carrying out the purpose
of the league, the government of the United States must at all times
act in strict harmony with the terms and intent of the United States
Constitution, which cannot in any way be altered by the treaty-making
power.
There is no echo here of the President’s uncompromising declaration
that the Covenant must be accepted precisely as he presented it. To
the lay mind there is no discernible difference between a reservation
and an interpretation, when the sole purpose in either case would be
to make it clear to the other signatories, through the text of the
instrument itself, that we could bind ourselves in no manner that
transcended the Constitution.
Smith is endowed with a talent for condensation, and I cheerfully quote
the result of his cogitations on the platforms and the speeches of the
candidates. “The Republican senators screamed for reservations, but
when Hiram Johnson showed symptoms of kicking out of the traces they
pretended that they never wanted the league at all. But to save their
faces they said maybe some time when the sky was high and they were
feeling good they would shuffle the deck and try a new deal. Cox is for
playing the game right through on the present layout. If you’re keen
for the League of Nations, your best chance of ever seeing America sign
up is to stand on Cox’s side of the table.”
Other Smiths, not satisfied with his analysis, and groping in the
dark, may be grateful for the leading hand of Mr. Taft. The former
President was, in his own words, “one of the small group who, in 1915,
began the movement in this country for the League of Nations and the
participation of the United States therein.” Continuing, he said, in
the Philadelphia _Ledger_ of August 1:
Had I been in the Senate, I would have voted for the league and
treaty as submitted; and I advocated its ratification accordingly.
I did not think and do not now think that anything in the League
Covenant as sent to the Senate would violate the Constitution of the
United States, or would involve us in wars which it would not be to
the highest interest of the world and this country to suppress by
universal boycott and, if need be, by military force.
In response to a question whether, this being his feeling, he would not
support Mr. Cox, Mr. Taft made this reply:
No such issue as the ratification of the League of Nations as
submitted can possibly be settled in the coming election. Only
one-third of the Senate is to be elected, and but fifteen Republican
senators out of forty-nine can be changed. There remain in the
Senate, whatever the result of the election, thirty-three Republicans
who have twice voted against the ratification of the league without
the Lodge reservations. Of the fifteen retiring Republicans, many are
certain of re-election. Thirty-three votes will defeat the league.
Smith, placidly fishing, made the point that a man who believed in a
thing would vote for it even though it was a sure loser, and asked
where a Democratic landslide would leave Mr. Taft. When I reminded him
that he had drifted out of the pellucid waters of political discussion
and snagged the boat on a moral question, he became peevish and refused
to fish any more that day.
The league is the paramount issue, or it is not; you can take it, or
leave it alone. The situation may be wholly changed when Mr. Root, to
whom the Republican league plank is attributed, reports the result of
his labors in organizing the international court of arbitration. Some
new proposal for an association of nations to promote or enforce peace
would be of undoubted benefit to the Republicans in case they find
their negative position difficult to maintain.
The platforms and speeches of acceptance present, as to other matters,
nothing over which neighbors need quarrel. As to retrenchment, labor,
taxation, and other questions of immediate and grave concern, the
promises of both candidates are fair enough. They both clearly realize
that we have entered upon a period that is likely to witness a strong
pressure for modifications of our social and political structure.
Radical sentiment has been encouraged, or at least tolerated, in a
disturbing degree by the present administration. However, there is
nothing in Mr. Cox’s record as governor or in his expressed views
to sustain any suspicion that he would temporize with the forces of
destruction. The business of democracy is to build, not to destroy;
to help, not to hinder. We have from both candidates much the same
assurances of sympathy with the position held nowadays by all
straight-thinking men--that industrial peace, concord, and contentment
can be maintained only by fair dealing and good-will among all of us
for the good of all.
From their public utterances and other testimony we are not convinced
that either candidate foreshadows a stalwart Saul striding across the
hills on his way to the leadership of Israel. Mr. Harding shows more
poise--more caution and timidity, if you will; Mr. Cox is a more alert
and forthright figure, far likelier to strike “straight at the grinning
Teeth of Things.” He is also distinctly less careful of his speech.
He reminds the Republicans that “McKinley broke the fetters of our
boundary lines, spoke of the freedom of Cuba, and carried the torch of
American idealism to the benighted Philippines”--a proud boast that
must have pained Mr. Bryan. In the same paragraph of his speech of
acceptance we are told that “Lincoln fought a war on the purely moral
question of slavery”--a statement that must ring oddly in the ears of
Southerners brought up in the belief that the South fought in defense
of State sovereignty. These may not be inadvertences, but a courageous
brushing away of old litter; he is entitled to the benefit of the
doubt.