COX AND THE LEAGUE--"I FAVOR GOING IN"
"And I do earnestly urge that all the people of this great and
enlightened state assemble at their respective places of worship
and invoke Almighty God to enlighten the Rulers of the world to
the end that they may see the folly of war and speedily
terminate it; that in our homes and about our hearthstones we
implore the Divine Spirit in behalf of the people of the
stricken nations, whose miseries are beyond our comprehension--
people who have been plunged into the depths of war through no
fault of their own.
"And I do further recommend and urge that in all the schools of
the State of Ohio the afternoon of Friday, October 2nd, 1914, be
set aside for exercises, having for their purpose to instill
into the minds of children and into their hearts the great
blessing that will come to them and to the world when war is no
more."
The quoted sentences from Governor Cox's proclamation for a day
of prayer on October 4, 1914, a period at which the horrors of
the great world war had but begun, disclose that Governor Cox is
not a recent convert to the central thought and purpose of the
conception of the League of Nations.
Through the numerous official proclamations and the many
addresses which he made during the period of the war the central
thought repeatedly emphasized was that the fruit of war must be
an everlasting peace. In accordance with the proclamation of the
President, establishing June 5, 1917, as the "call-to-the-
colors" day of the young men of the Country, the Governor said:
"It is probably the most trying hour the world has ever known,
and the policies of government, purified and preserved by those
who live now, will determine the civilization under which our
children and our children's children shall live in the future.
What greater guarantee of their peace and happiness can be given
them than a democracy that envelops all nations--a democracy
sanctified by an endearing memory of what was unselfishly given
to make it possible?"
In his proclamation calling for a State convention to perfect
the organization of an Ohio branch of the League to Enforce
Peace, the Governor emphasized as the second of its objects "to
keep the world safe by a League of Nations," and he said that
the purpose of the organization would be "to confirm opposition
to a premature peace and sustain the determination of our people
to fight until Prussian militarism is destroyed and the way may
be open for securing permanent peace by a League of Nations."
When hostilities were concluded Governor Cox had the faith that
"this peace brings the dawn of a new day of consecration," and
in his official proclamation he said: "A world is reborn. Our
Nation has brought success to a righteous cause. Our State has
given with full heart to the achievement of the glorious end."
In an address in Toronto, Canada, November, 1918, Governor Cox
said: "We consign to posterity an example and inspiration and
idealism as lofty as ever stirred the hearts of men. And then,
turning away from the past, we face the sunrise of to-morrow
with faith and resolution to make a better world than that of
yesterday, and to demonstrate that our heroic defenders have not
died in vain. These are dangerous times to permit the inventive
genius of man to go unchecked in matters of armament. The
unspeakable horrors of the war just ended make us instinctively
turn our faces away from the possibility of a half-century from
now, if our thought is to be turned intensively to the
production of things destructive to home life. With the sea
fairly alive with submarines, the air filled with squadrons of
flying machines, and the mysteries of nature unfolding before
the sustained labor of chemists--cities and states and nations
could be quickly depopulated. The Prussian conspiracy would not
have been possible if the international affairs of the earth had
been assigned to a League of Nations. The play may seem to be
altruistic, if not fantastic, but the skeptic is moved by the
idea that nations cannot forget selfishness. If that be true,
then the world lacks the fundamental fibers of character to
build an enduring civilization."
In welcoming the returned soldiers of the 166th Infantry in New
York in may, 1919, Governor Cox said: "If peace is to endure, it
must be by means of institutions of government whose strength in
the right must inspire public confidence. We solemnly give the
pledge of our state that the faith will be kept."
Economic effects of the defeat of the Treaty of Peace were
discussed by Governor Cox at Henderson, Kentucky, in April,
1920. He said: "Some of you may not know the effect of the
defeat of the Treaty. While at Mayfield (Ky.) I saw an old
farmer who told me he was offered twenty and ten dollars for his
tobacco before Christmas, but was forced to sell at six and
three dollars. The tumbling of the foreign exchange and the
inability of Italy and other Continental European countries to
purchase their tobacco is the cause of Western Kentucky farmers
losing millions of dollars. This resulted from the Republican
Senate's refusal to ratify the peace treaty. While the
Republican dictators of the Senate set the stage for political
triumph, they do not care how much tobacco growers or the people
at large suffer.
Turning to the patriotic issue of the present campaign, he said
at the same time: "It will be with infinite pleasure that we
shall ask the Republican spellbinders if they have kept the
faith with the boys who sleep overseas."
During all the progress of the early part of the campaign the
Governor denounced those who "are seeking to set up racial lines
and create a prejudice among the foreign elements in our midst."
He said: "While other powers are doing everything possible to
hold the loose ends of civilization together, these leaders are
deliberately conspiring to mislead the great bulk of Americans
with assertions that are, when analyzed, nothing more than
demagoguery of the crudest kind." Earlier in the year, in
speaking before the Jefferson Club of Marion, Indiana, the
Governor said: "The plot to multiply the woes of mankind, in
order that confusion multiplied might be charged to President
Wilson's insistence on principle and international good faith,
is now passing through the process of public thought, and we
have confidence in an intelligent verdict. The winning of the
war, in less time than the formalizing of peace carries a
contrast that needs no comment."
During the period for the selection of delegates to the
Democratic Convention at San Francisco, Governor Cox gave a
signed interview to the New York Times, in which he reviewed the
controversy concerning the League of Nations and outlined two
reservations which he believed would satisfy every reasonable
objection. In part, he said:
"If public opinion in the country is the same as it is in Ohio,
then there can be no doubt but that the people want a League of
Nations because it seems to offer the surest guarantee against
war. I am convinced that the San Francisco Convention will
endorse in its vital principles the League adopted at
Versailles.
"There can be no doubt but that some senators have been
conscientious in their desire to clarify the provisions of the
treaty. Two things apparently have disturbed them. First, they
wanted to make sure that the League was not to be an alliance,
and that its basic purpose was peace and not controversy.
Second, they wanted the other powers signing the instrument to
understand our constitutional limitations beyond which the
treaty-making power cannot go.
"Dealing with these two questions in order, it has always seemed
to me that the interpretation of the function of the League
might have been stated in 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.'
"Such a declaration would at least express the view of the
United States and justify the course which our nation would
unquestionably follow if the basic purpose of the League were at
any time distorted. It would also appear to be a simple matter
to provide against any misunderstanding in the future and at the
same time to meet the objections of those who believe that we
might be inviting a controversy over our constitutional rights,
by making a senatorial addition on words something like these:
"'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.'
"Some people doubt the enduring quality of this general
international scheme. Whether this be true or not, the fact
remains that it will justify itself if it does no more than
prevent the nations of the earth from arming themselves to the
teeth and wasting resource which is necessary to repair the
losses of the war. No one contends that it is a perfect
document, but it is a step in the right direction. It would put
the loose ends of civilization together now and do more toward
the restoration of normal conditions in six months' time than
can the powers of the earth, acting independently, in ten years'
time. The Republican senatorial cabal insists that the treaty be
Americanized. Suppose that Italy asked that it be Italianized--
France that it be Frenchized--Britain that it be Britainized,
and so on down the line. The whole thing would result in a
perfect travesty.
"The important thing now is to enable the world to go to work,
but the beginning must not be on the soft sands of an unsound
plan. If this question passes to the next administration, there
should be no fetich developed over past differences. Yet at the
same time there must be no surrender of vital principles. It may
be necessary if partitions and reparation require changing, to
assemble representatives of the people making up the nations of
the League, in which event revision may not be so much an affair
of diplomats. But I repeat the pressing task is getting started,
being careful however that we are starting with an instrument
worth while, and not a mere shadow."
To an extent to which very few public men favoring the League of
Nations have gone, Governor Cox has expressed the firm
conviction that the League will enable the people of Ireland to
bring their contention and claims before a world tribunal. It
was his statement before an audience in Cincinnati that the
League would be the means by which the Irish case could be heard
in the highest court in the world, and he stated that thus far
it had never been heard even in a magistrate's court. Sentiments
on the question of self-determination were also expressed in his
article in the New York Times. In this the Governor said:
"We are a composite people in the United States and the belief
of students of government in years past that our democracy would
not endure was based entirely upon the idea that we could not
build a nation from the blood of many races which had old
inherited prejudices. It is very important, particularly at this
time when racial impulses and emotions have been stirred world-
wide as never before, that we make the utmost effort to prevent
division along these lines. In this connection it is well to
bear in mind that the armistice which preceded the peace was
based upon fourteen cardinal points; one of the most, if not the
most, important of which was the right of self-determination.
"Wars in the past have resulted largely from dispute over
territory and imposed restraints of racial aspirations.
Governmental entities are more apt to last and to live
harmoniously with others if groups are bounded by racial
homogeneity rather than by the physical characteristics of the
earth in the form of mountains, rivers, etc. Individual
aspiration is a God-given element and distinct ambitions possess
the soul of racial unity. In harmony with this theory, the San
Francisco convention should emphasize the Democratic belief in
the principle of self-determination in government. Our citizens
will not deny to any race of people the right to hold the
emotions which stirred the founders of our Republic."
The Governor's position on the League was amplified in his
Address of Acceptance at Dayton on August 7th, 1920, in which he
said:
"We are in a time which calls for straight thinking, straight
talking and straight acting. This is no time for wobbling. Never
in all our history has more been done for government. Never was
sacrifice more sublime. The most precious things of heart and
home were given up in a spirit which guarantees the perpetuity
of our institutions--if the faith is kept with those who served
and suffered. The altar of our republic is drenched in blood and
tears, and he who turns away from the tragedies and obligations
of the war, not consecrated to a sense of honor and of duty
which resists every base suggestion of personal or political
expediency, is unworthy of the esteem of his countrymen.
"The men and women who by expressed policy at the San Francisco
Convention charted our course in the open seas of the future
sensed the spirit of the hour and phrased it with clarity and
courage. It is not necessary to read and reread the Democratic
platform to know its meaning. It is a document clear in its
analysis of conditions and plain in the pledge of service made
to the public. It carries honesty of word and intent. Proud of
the leadership and achievement of the party in war, Democracy
faces unafraid the problems of peace. Indeed, its pronouncement
has but to be read along with the platform framed by Republican
leaders in order that both spirit and purpose as they dominate
the opposing organizations may be contrasted. On the one hand we
see pride expressed in the nation's glory and a promise of
service easily understood. On the other a captious, unhappy
spirit and the treatment of subjects vital to the present and
the future, in terms that have completely confused the public
mind. It was clear that the senatorial oligarchy had been given
its own way in the selection of the presidential candidate, but
it was surprising that it was able to fasten into the party
platform the creed of hate and bitterness and the vacillating
policy that possesses it.
"In the midst of war the present senatorial cabal, led by
Senators Lodge, Penrose and Smoot, was formed. Superficial
evidence of loyalty to the President was deliberate in order
that the great rank and file of their party, faithful and
patriotic to the very core, might not be offended. But
underneath this misleading exterior, conspirators planned and
plotted, with bigoted zeal. With victory to our arms they
delayed and obstructed the works of peace. If deemed useful to
the work in hand no artifice for interfering with our
constitutional peace-making authority was rejected. Before the
country knew, yes, before these men themselves knew the details
of the composite plan, formed at the peace table, they declared
their opposition to it. Before the treaty was submitted to the
senate in the manner the Constitution provides, they violated
every custom and every consideration of decency by presenting a
copy of the document, procured unblushingly from enemy hands,
and passed it into the printed record of senatorial proceedings.
From that hour dated the enterprise of throwing the whole
subject into a technical discussion, in order that the public
might be confused. The plan has never changed in its objective,
but the method has. At the outset there was the careful
insistence that there was no desire to interfere with the
principle evolved and formalized at Versailles. Later, it was
the form and not the substance that professedly inspired attack.
But pretense was futile when proposals later came forth that
clearly emasculated the basic principle of the whole peace plan.
It is not necessary to recall the details of the controversy in
the senate. Senator Lodge finally crystallized his ideas into
what were known as the Lodge reservations, and when congress
adjourned these reservations held the support of the so-called
regular Republican leaders.
"From that time the processes have been interesting. Political
expediency in its truest sense dwarfed every consideration
either of the public interest or of the maintenance of the honor
of a great political party. The exclusive question was how to
avoid a rupture in the Republican organization. The country
received with interest, to say the least, the announcement from
Chicago, where the national convention was assembled, that a
platform plank dealing with the subject of world peace, had been
drawn leaving out the Lodge reservations, and yet remaining
agreeable to all interests, meaning thereby, the Lodge
reservationists, the mild reservationists and the group of
Republican senators that openly opposed the League of Nations in
any form.
"As the platform made no definite committal of policy and was,
in fact, so artfully phrased as to make almost any deduction
possible, it passed through the convention with practical
unanimity. Senator Johnson, however, whose position has been
consistent and whose opposition to the League in any shape is
well known, withheld his support of the convention's choice
until the candidate had stated the meaning of the platform, and
announced definitely the policy that would be his, if elected.
"The Republican candidate has spoken and his utterance calls
forth the following approval from Senator Johnson:
"'Yesterday in his speech of acceptance Senator Harding
unequivocally took his stand upon the paramount issue in this
campaign--the League of Nations. The Republican party stands
committed by its platform. Its standard-bearer has now
accentuated that platform. There can be no misunderstanding his
words.'
"Senator Harding, as the candidate of the party, and Senator
Johnson are as one on this question, and, as the latter
expresses it, the Republican party is committed both by platform
in the abstract and by its candidate in specification. The
threatened revolt among leaders of the party is averted, but the
minority position as expressed in the senate prevails as that of
the party. In short, principle, as avowed in support of the
Lodge reservations, or of the so-called mild reservations, has
been surrendered to expediency.
"Senator Harding makes this new pledge of policy in behalf of
his party:
"'I promise you formal and effective peace so quickly as a
Republican congress can pass its declaration for a Republican
executive to sign.'
"This means but one thing--a separate peace with Germany!
"This would be the most disheartening event in civilization
since the Russians made their separate peace with Germany, and
infinitely more unworthy on our part than it was on that of the
Russians. They were threatened with starvation and revolution
had swept their country. Our soldiers fought side by side with
the Allies. So complete was the coalition of strength and
purpose that General Fochs was given supreme command, and every
soldier in the allied cause, no matter what flag he followed,
recognized him as his chief. We fought the war together, and now
before the thing is through it is proposed to enter into a
separate peace with Germany! In good faith we pledged our
strength with our associates for the enforcement of terms upon
offending powers, and now it is suggested that this be
withdrawn. Suppose Germany, recognizing the first break in the
Allies, proposes something we cannot accept. Does Senator
Harding intend to send an army to Germany to press her to our
terms? Certainly the allied army could not be expected to render
aid. If, on the other hand, Germany should accept the chance we
offered of breaking the bond it would be for the express purpose
of insuring a German-American alliance, recognizing that the
Allies--in fact, no nation in good standing--would have anything
to do with either of us.
"This plan would not only be a piece of bungling diplomacy, but
plain, unadulterated dishonesty, as well."
"No less an authority than Senator Lodge said, before the heat
of recent controversy, that to make peace except in company with
the Allies would 'brand us everlastingly with dishonor and bring
ruin to us.'
"And then after peace is made with Germany, Senator Harding
would, he says, '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.'
"In short, America, refusing to enter the League of Nations (now
already established by twenty-nine nations) and bearing and
deserving the contempt of the world, would submit an entirely
new project. This act would either be regarded as arrant madness
or attempted international bossism.
"The plain truth is, that the Republican leaders, obsessed with
a determination to win the presidential election, have attempted
to satisfy too many divergent views. Inconsistencies, inevitable
under the circumstances, rise to haunt them on every hand, and
they find themselves arrayed, in public thought at least,
against a great principle. More than that, their conduct is
opposed to the idealism upon which their party prospered in
other days."
"Illustrating these observations by concrete facts, let it be
remembered that those now inveighing against an interest in
affairs outside of America, criticised President Wilson in
unmeasured terms for not resenting the invasion of Belgium in
1914. They term the League of Nations a military alliance,
which, except for their opposition, would envelop our country,
when, as a matter of truth, the subject of a League of Nations
has claimed the best thought of America for years, and the
League to Enforce Peace was presided over by so distinguished a
Republican as ex-President Taft, who, before audiences in every
section, advocated the principle and the plan of the present
League. They charge experimentation, when we have as historical
precedent the Monroe Doctrine, which is the very essence of
Article X of the Versailles covenant. Skeptics viewed Monroe's
mandate with alarm, predicting recurrent wars in defense of
Central and South American states, whose guardians they alleged
we need not be. And yet not a shot has been fired in almost one
hundred years in preserving sovereign rights on this hemisphere.
They hypocritically claim that the League of Nations will result
in our boys being drawn into military service, but they fail to
realize that every high-school youngster in the land knows that
no treaty can override our Constitution, which reserves to
Congress, and to Congress alone, the power to declare war. They
preach Americanism with a meaning of their own invention, and
artfully appeal to a selfish and provincial spirit, forgetting
that Lincoln fought a war over the purely moral question of
slavery, and the McKinley broke the fetters of our boundary
lines, spoke the freedom of Cuba, and carried the torch of
American idealism to the benighted Philippines. They lose memory
of Garfield's prophecy that America, under the blessings of God-
given opportunity, would by her moral leadership and co-
operation become the Messiah among the nations of the earth.
"These are fateful times. Organized government has a definite
duty all over the world. The house of civilization is to be put
in order. The supreme issue of the century is before us and the
nation that halts and delays is playing with fire. The finest
impulses of humanity, rising above national lines, merely seek
to make another horrible war impossible. Under the old order of
international anarchy war came overnight, and the world was on
fire before we knew it. It sickens our senses to think of
another. We saw one conflict into which modern science brought
new forms of destruction in great guns, submarines, airships,
and poison gases. It is no secret that our chemists had
perfected, when the contest came to a precipitate close, gases
so deadly that whole cities could be wiped out, armies
destroyed, and the crews of battleships smothered. The public
prints are filled with the opinions of military men that in
future wars the method, more effective than gases or bombs, will
be the employment of the germs of disease, carrying pestilence
and destruction. Any nation prepared under these conditions, as
Germany was equipped in 1914, could conquer the world in a year.
"It is planned now to make this impossible. A definite plan has
been agreed upon. The League of Nations is in operation. A very
important work, under its control, just completed, was
participated in by the Hon. Elihu Root, Secretary of State under
the Roosevelt administration. At a meeting of the Council of the
League of Nations, February 11, and organizing committee of
twelve of the most eminent jurists in the world was selected.
The duty of this group was to devise a plan for the
establishment of a Permanent Court of International Justice, as
a branch of the League. This assignment has been concluded by
unanimous action. This augurs well for world progress. The
question is whether we shall or shall not join in this practical
and humane movement. President Wilson, as our representative at
the peace table, entered the League in our name, in so far as
the executive authority permitted. Senator Harding, as the
Republican candidate for the presidency, proposes in plain words
that we remain out of it. As the Democratic candidate, I favor
going in. Let us analyze Senator Harding's plan of making a
German-American peace, and then calling for a 'new relationship
among nations,' assuming for the purpose of argument only, that
the perfidious hand that dealt with Germany would possess the
power or influence to draw twenty-nine nations away from a plan
already at work, and induce them to retrace every step and make
a new beginning. This would entail our appointing another
commission to assemble with those selected by the other powers.
With the Versailles instrument discarded, the whole subject of
partitions and divisions of territory on new lines would be
reopened. The difficulties in this regard, as any fair mind
appreciates, would be greater than they were at the peace
session, and we must not attempt to convince ourselves that they
did not try the genius, patience, and diplomacy of statesmen at
that time. History will say that great as was the Allied triumph
in war, no less a victory was achieved at the peace table. The
Republican proposal means dishonor, world confusion and delay.
It would keep us in permanent company with Germany, Russia,
Turkey and Mexico. It would entail, in the ultimate, more real
injury than the war itself. The Democratic position on the
question, as expressed in platform is:
"'We advocate immediate ratification of the Treaty without
reservations which would impair its essential integrity, but do
no oppose the acceptance of any reservation making clearer or
more specific the obligations of the United States to the League
associates.'
"The first duty of the new administration clearly will be the
ratification of the Treaty. The matter should be approached
without thought of the bitterness of the past. The public
verdict will have been rendered, and I am confident that the
friends of world peace as it will be promoted by the League,
will have in numbers the constitutional requisite to favorable
senatorial action. The captious may say that our platform
reference to reservations is vague and indefinite. Its meaning,
in brief, is that we shall state our interpretation of the
covenant as a matter of good faith to our associates and as a
precaution against any misunderstanding in the future. The point
is, that after the people shall have spoken, the League will be
in the hands of its friends in the Senate, and a safe index as
to what they will do is supplied by what reservations they have
proposed in the past.
"Our platform clearly lays no bar against any additions that
will be helpful, but it speaks in a firm resolution to stand
against anything that disturbs the vital principle. We hear it
said that interpretations are unnecessary. That may be true, but
they will at least be reassuring to many of our citizens, who
feel that in signing the treaty, there should be no mental
reservations that are not expressed in plain words, as a matter
of good faith to our associates. Such interpretations possess
the further virtue of supplying a base upon which agreement can
be reached, and agreement, without injury to the covenant, is
now of pressing importance. It was the desire to get things
started, that prompted some members of the senate to vote for
the Lodge reservations. Those who conscientiously voted for them
in the final roll calls realized, however, that they acted under
duress, in that a politically bigoted minority was exercising
the arbitrary power of its position to enforce drastic
conditions. Happily the voters of the republic, under our system
of government, can remedy that situation, and I have the faith
that they will, at the election this fall. Then organized
government will be enabled to combine impulse and facility in
the making of better world conditions. The agencies of exchange
will automatically adjust themselves to the opportunities of
commercial freedom. New life and renewed hope will take hold of
every nation. Mankind will press a resolute shoulder to the task
of readjustment, and a new era will have dawned upon the earth."
Speaking to the National Guardsmen at the National Rifle Matches
at Camp Perry, Ohio, on August 12, he said:
"I recognize that in a sense you are assembled here for the
purpose of increasing the efficiency of our military strength,
and yet I am convinced that the great mass of our soldiers are
united in purpose and prayer, to prevent wars in the future, if
it can be honorably done. They know the meaning of modern
warfare. There was very little romance in the long hours and the
slaughter of the front trench. The thought that must have run
through the mind of every solder in the midst of it all, was how
such a thing was possible in modern civilization.
"The cost to the United States was more than one million dollars
an hour for over two years. The total expense of twenty-two
billion dollars was almost equal to the total disbursements of
the United States government from 1791 to 1918. It was
sufficient to have run the Revolutionary War for more than one
thousand years at the rate of expenditure which that war
involved. The army expenditures alone, so experts claim, are a
near approach to the volume of gold produced in the United Sates
from the discovery of America up to the outbreak of the European
War, and yet the United States spent only about one-eighth of the
entire cost of the war, and less than one-fifth of the
expenditure of the allied side.
"If civilization has not had its lesson, then there is no hope
for it. It could not stand such a war again and survive. The
genius of man, if that is a happy term in discussing the horrors
of conflict, has always made the latest war the most frightful.
When we consider the development in the methods of human
destruction between 1914 and 1918 and apply the problem of
simple proportion, we are staggered even to think of the
possibilities of the sons of men being again brought into
combat.
"There will always be a national guard in the States, if for no
other reason than domestic defense, and the military arm of the
federal government will be maintained, but the hope that vast
expenditures for armaments are a thing of the past, possesses
every home in America, while the common impulse that moves the
great mass of people world-wide is inspired by the vision of
peace and the settlement of controversy by the arbitrament of
reason rather than of force."
At the very beginning of his canvass for the Presidency Governor
Cox has gone upon the theory that the League of Nations needed
simple explanation to the people of the Country. In his own
phrase, he has talked the ABC's of the League, finding that the
technical discussions had failed to hold the interest of the
people. Illustrating this policy are two addresses made to state
conventions early in August. At Wheeling, to the West Virginia
Democratic Convention, he said:
"We resisted a world-wide menace, and we intend now to establish
permanent protection against another menace. We know how easily
wars came in the past. We want to make their coming difficult in
the future. We have a definite plan; the American people
understand it, and after the 4th of March, 1921, it is our
purpose to put it into practical operation, without continuing
months of useless discussion.
"The platform of our party gives us the opportunity to render
moral co-operation in the greatest movement of righteousness in
the history of the world, and at the same time to hold our own
interests free from peril. Our position is plain. The
circumstances of the last eighteen months convict the Republican
leadership of attempted trickery with the American people. Under
one pretext after another they prevented the readjustment of
national conditions. They proposed certain reservations to the
League of Nations, and then they were abandoned, to be followed
by nothing more definite than the announcement of a 'hope' that
an entirely new arrangement might be made in world affairs. What
method they have in mind, if it is concretely in anyone's mind,
the people do not know. No unprejudiced person can deny that the
consequence of abandoning the League and attempting an entirely
new project, will be prolonged delay. If the voters of the
Republic, without regard to party, desire action, and prompt
action along lines that are now clearly understood, they will
render a verdict so overwhelmingly expressive of public
indignation that scheming politicians for years to come will not
forget.
"In the fact of an efficient leadership during the war, and of
constructive, progressive, economic service in peace, the
Republican leaders developed a smoke screen, behind which they
seek to gain their objective, the spoils of office. For years
the best thought and the humanitarian impulses of civilized
countries have been applied to the high purpose of making war
practically impossible. The League of Nations became the
composite agreement, and now the senatorial oligarchy meets it
with the absurd plea that it increases the probability of armed
conflict. It not only reveals unworthy intent, but a very poor
estimate of American intelligence as well."
Taking the issue to the people, and free from what he termed
strait-jacket restrictions, the Governor said at Columbus, when
he talked to the Ohio Democratic Convention:
"I carefully reviewed the platform adopted at Chicago, and
studied its principles, but I know as much about it now as when
I started to read it. I gave intensive thought also to the
speech made by the Republican candidate, the purpose of which
was to interpret the meaning of that historic document, and
after long and vigilant labor I found two pronouncements. What
was the first? The statement that staggered the sensibilities of
the civilization of the world, the unthinkable, monstrous
proposal, that in the midst of the uncertainty of the hour, a
separate peace ought to be made with Germany. I want you to go
back with me just a year and a half, to the time when victory
was son; to the time when our boys maintained their vigils on
the banks of the Rhine, standing there in solid formation with
2,000,000 great lads behind them. Germany signed the peace
document on the dotted line. What has happened in the united
States Senate to prevent its acceptance by the upper branch of
the American Congress? I need not recall, because every child
knows about it. But the soldiers came back home; they were
demobilized; they entered into their several walks of life
believing that their victory had been complete, and that the
offending powers had been brought to terms. And now, with the
armies disbanded, and now, with our military strength no longer
holding together, it is proposed by the candidate of the
Republican party that he will prove false to the boys who stood
by when that peace was made. He will destroy the pact and enter
into a new covenant.
"Six hundred thousand French died at Verdun defending the
slogan, 'They shall not pass.' More than a million English and
Canadians died on the Somme, reforming their ranks, and hurling
back the challenge, 'They shall not pass.' They were possessed
of the crusading spirit; they were preserving the Democracy of
the world, the very Government of the earth. And now another
menace is threatened, and it is proposed that some one, acting
in behalf of two millions of soldiers and the one hundred
million people of this Republic, shall perform a perfectly
perfidious act. Standing at the head of the hosts of the great
army which opposes the hosts of reaction; standing at the head
of the hosts of Democracy, at the head of the hosts of progress;
at the head of the hundreds of thousands of independents of this
Country, I give to you this assurance: That this dishonorable
deed will not be perpetrated--for two very important reasons.
First, Warren G. Harding will not have a chance to do it; and
second, I will not insult two million soldiers by doing it
myself.
"And then proceeding to the second stage of these proceedings,
the Republican candidate says that after he shall have made a
separate peace with Germany, he will then assemble the
conscience of the civilization of the world and form an entirely
new relationship. If, for the sake of argument only, we are to
assume that a separate peace with Germany were made, I believe
that the Government of the United States of America would be so
unworthy in the eyes of the nations of the world that none of
them would have anything to do with us at all.
"This one question will remain in the public mind. After all
this is the crux of the whole situation. The Republican
candidate and the reactionaries now in control of the Republican
party, promise you nothing whatsoever except a proposal which at
is best will involve months and probably years of delay. On the
other hand, we promise you this, that after the 4th of March,
1921, with the least amount of conversation possible, we will
enter the League of Nations of the world. Our Democratic
platform adopted at San Francisco gives us full license and
opportunity to enter the League upon terms which will need no
defense. Our position is not unbending; it is not captious. We
proclaim that we will accept any conditions that interpret, that
call attention to the limitations of our Constitution; that
serve full notice now upon the powers of the earth that we can
go so far and no further.
"In other words we have the opportunity of concluding this, the
greatest movement for righteousness in all the history of the
world, and then the loose ends of civilization will be put
together. The opportunity for exchange will have been restored.
America will proceed upon an era of prosperity and peace without
precedent.
"I shall address no audience in America this year without
puncturing the smoke screen of hypocrisy and insincerity which
has been raised, in order that the reactionaries might creep in
behind it and claim their main objective, the spoils of office.
That smoke screen now is the statement that the League of
Nations increases the probabilities of war. It would have been
just as absurd to have said to the boys at the time our fathers
won their freedom, that if you proclaim your independence you are
going to have war, because you will have to fight to retain it.
Every school boy in Ohio understands there are three branches of
Government, Judicial, Legislative and Executive, and when war
has been brought to an end, the head of the Executive
Department, the President of the United States, makes the treaty
with the power with which we have been at war, and then we find
that limitation of power. The President can go no further. He
submits it to the Senate for ratification. The President of the
United States has very definite power, and there are also very
specific powers reserved to the Congress of the United States.
The Congress can do nothing contrary to the Constitution; the
President can do nothing contrary to the Constitution. The
Constitution provides that war can be declared by Congress, and
Congress only. In order to give point and truth to what the
reactionary leaders are now contending for, it would be
necessary to change the Constitution of the United States. This
would require a two-thirds' vote of the House and Senate, and
then a three-fourths' vote of the states of the Union. Our
machinery was so adjusted that no matter who might be the
Executive Officer of this Republic, he did not possess the power
to declare war. The power was placed as near to the people as it
was possible to place it. It was placed with their
Representatives in Congress.
"Now--the Republican leaders in contending that four or five
potentates, four or five distinguished statesmen over seas,
sitting in the council of the League of Nations, can order our
soldiers anywhere, are speaking a deliberate and a willful
untruth. Presidential proprieties require that I do not
characterize it in stronger language. You know it is very hard
to please the opposition, although we are under great debt to
them for having made the gauge of battle in this campaign. The
proposition to disgrace America by making a separate peace with
Germany was simply opening their front lines. I have already
entered that opening with the hosts of Democracy around me.
"About three months ago a well-meaning Republican business man
was driving through Clark county. His soldier boy was at the
wheel, and he looked over into a field and saw a hundred trucks
lying there; and he seized upon the circumstance to attack the
Administration at Washington. The son had heard enough of it,
and he stopped the car and said: 'Father, you have got to stop
talking that way. When we were in the front trench we had warm
food, no matter whether we were in the midst of hell's fire or
not. We had all the ammunition we needed. It was ten times
better to have more trucks than we needed than to have fewer
trucks than we needed.' And then there is another reason for it
all. Need we be reminded that the opposition said that it would
require Secretary Baker and President Wilson eighteen months to
take 600,000 soldiers over seas, and, recognizing that it would
require in all probability more than 2,000,000 soldiers to win
the war, that the war would then last, under this Democratic
Administration, four times eighteen months. Any child in this
country can have the facts presented to him and he will have the
mentality to grasp these outstanding circumstances: President
Wilson and Secretary Baker, at the head of the military forces
of the nation did not send 600,000 soldiers over in eighteen
months' time. They sent 2,000,000 soldiers over in eighteen
months' time, and won the war without the loss of a single troop
ship."