February 1919

League of Nations vs Monroe Doctrine

February 7

Future of German Colonies Debated

The Allied powers have agreed that the German colonies shall not be returned to Germany, owing to mismanagement, cruelty and the use of those colonies as submarine bases. The conquered regions of Armenia, Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Arabia shall be detached from the Turkish Empire.

Provision is made whereby the well-being and development of backward colonial regions are regarded as a sacred trust of civilization, over which the League of Nations shall exercise supervisory care. The administration of these regions is entrusted to the more advanced nations, who will act in behalf of the League of Nations.

Those nations charged with the care and development of the colonial regions will undertake actions based upon the stage of current development and potential for self-government. The mandates in Palestine, Syria, and other portions of Turkey, where well-developed civilization exists, would be comparatively light and would probably include a certain degree of self-governance.

On the other hand, colonies like those in Central Africa would require extensive management to suppress the slave trade, the liquor traffic, ammunition and arms traffic, and the prevention of military authority on the part of the natives, except for native police purposes.

Other colonies, such as those in German Southwest Africa, and some of the South Pacific islands, have such sparse and scattered populations and are so separated from other communities that the allied countries charged with their oversight will probably simply assume them into their existing empires.

Meanwhile it is reported Japan has reiterated her intention to hold the Marshall and Caroline Islands in the Pacific ,which she took from Germany during the war, as well as her interest upon the execution of her agreement, reached in September last, with China, regarding Japan’s control of Shanghai.

Dardanelles Care May Fall To U. S.

It has been learned that a movement within the peace conference is to make the United States the trustee of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. The French point of view is that the Americans technically are admirably equipped to improve the port and the straits as they never were improved under the Turkish administration.

Moreover France considers that American proven disinterestedness is the best possible guarantee that all nations involved in commerce to and from the Black Sea will be treated with absolute fairness.

The European powers seem to feel that the United States is acting queerly in a hesitating to accept trusteeship over some of the more difficult regions of the old world. “You have taken the lead,” they say, “in the movement to reorganize the world on a just and liberal basis, yet you have seen not to desire to accept full responsibility for the reorganization.”

Our Monroe Doctrine however will have lost all meaning if we accept the League of Nations say some. As by accepting the League, it opens the door for European meddling in the affairs of the American continent. American that sill adhere to this Doctrine therefore desire to frustrate the adoption of the League’s treaty in the Senate.

When it is pointed out that the United States might accept the trusteeship of Samoa and other Pacific islands where we already have interest, Europeans reply; “Yes, you are willing to administer places where no real difficulty is involved, but when it is a question of a real important region, like Constantinople, you hesitate.”

Huns Face Stiff Terms

The Allies will probably demand stiff terms be imposed upon Germany, whose tactics of tacit resistance are said to have reached a climax in a threat made at Weimar by the German Chancellor to break off negotiations with the allies.

The feeling in peace conference circles is that the Germans are more and more forgetting their position, and it is expected that the Supreme War Council will take measures to bring them to a sense of the realities.

Marshall Foch will meet with the Germans on February 17 to fix the conditions for the third renewal of the armistice. It is understood that the Council will fix a brief time within which the Germans must carry out the conditions they have only fulfilled in part. In this respect it is noted that none of the German merchant ships which were to have been sent to certain allied ports have yet been handed over.

The supreme war Council also will fix the size of the contingents of France, Great Britain, the United States and the Allied nations in the armies of occupation, both in Europe and Asia.

The Naval branch of the peace conference, bearing mainly on the turning over of the German submarines, blockade restrictions and the surrender of the German commercial fleet is progressing. This fleet, it is stated, is ready to be turned over, but the allies have not yet agreed on the allotment of the ships among the various allied nations nor on the compensation for the use of the vessels.

The proposal that the German warships now in Scapa Flow, be sunk is practically certain to be accepted by the peace conference. The destruction of the ships is abdicated on the grounds that their division among the victors would cause heartburn. The vessels, numbering five battle cruisers, 11 battleships, eight cruisers and 50 destroyers, be escorted out into the Atlantic and be sunk. The question of dealing with the surrendered submarines will be considered separately where they shall be sunk or preserved.

Another point for which the British naval build vacation will press at the peace conference will be the raising of Heigoland. This would be as tremendous undertaking, as the island is about one third of a mile square and its highest point is 190 feet, while the post is fortified with concrete and steel. And enormous quantity of explosives would be required, but, it would be the best way of consuming the German reserves of high explosives.

February 14

America for Americans

“American for Americans only” is the declared policy, which the American peace delegates here are striving to obtain so as to ensure that the United States may not become involved in European affairs any further. In this way America can maintain the Monroe Doctrine, and at the same time, live up to requirements placed upon it by the League of Nations.

It is assumed that when President Wilson takes the American public into his confidence, he will be able to announce that the sovereign interest of America has been protected by the agreement drafted in Paris. This is due to the adamant demand that America remain aloof from petty squabbles and intrigue designed to drag her into the mire of European politics.

As currently proposed, the League of Nations will be a permanent Executive Council, consisting of 12 delegates, principally from the great powers, which will decide most of the international questions. It will meet once a year. Nations will be represented proportionally to their size and strength.

There will be an international tribunal for questions in litigation, an international economic council and various special commissions, but these have not yet been determined. Finally, there will be an international army, composed of contingents from the different countries, under command of an international staff.

A series of economic and boycott measures will be adopted as a means of exercising pressure on hostile states. If two states insist, despite everything, on fighting, the League will permit them to do so on condition that they observe the rules of warfare, which will be drafted by the League. If the rules aren't followed the League may intervene.

The League as now envisioned goes well beyond the original American idea, which the European allies considered too weak to be effective. The present plan bears a strong resemblance to the American Constitution with a powerful executive and as separate parliament and a tribunal.

France & Belgium Demand Reparations

The French and the Belgian plea that they should be permitted to recoup their enormous losses by the destruction of their industrial plants through the stoppage of German industries until France and Belgium had been rehabilitated is met by the American view, which is shared by the British, that such losses should be reimbursed by cash indemnities from Germany within a responsible time. The supreme Economic Council can regulate the distribution of raw materials between countries so as to ensure France and Belgium have a proper advantage over Germany and prevent the latter from gaining the world's market.

The French are growing more negative towards American’s daily. French officials seek to deny it. But when confronted with the preponderant weight of evidence they finally have to admit that it is true.

The average argument of the average Frenchman today is: “Well, what did American do in the war, anyway, that she should come here to dictate whether we are to have full reparations and complete indemnification to any extent, we may desire to ask?”

The allies are not antagonistic to France being fully indemnified for the ruin created by the Germans. They want France to have everything to which she is truly justified, but object to retarding the business of peace by trying to incorporate in the settlement France's economic problems, when this can be handled by other bodies satisfactorily.

But while insisting that Germany pay for her heinous deeds, they insist also that Germany be giving a chance. France's demands that Germany be handicapped commercially until France has rehabilitated her industries is not without justification and is defensible in many respects.

France has suffered more than any other nation in the war. Her prosperous northern regions are hideous remnants of once thriving communities. Years will lapse before France’s financial standing is maintained without outside assistance. One sympathizes with France's desperate need of assistance and extremely plucky efforts to solve her commercial dilemma.

It is impossible to ascertain the exact detail of the damage inflicted during the war and the French argue that judgments should be agreed upon and placed in the peace treaty on the basis of a fairly comprehensive examination already made by agents of the Allied powers. Figures in possession of experts of the peace conference are believed to give a close approximation of the total sum Germany is able to pay.

February 21

Huns Accept New Armistice Terms

The German government on Sunday night accepted the Allied terms for the extension of the armistice. The German government, meeting in Weimer, debated the new armistice conditions through Saturday night.

The Berlin staff of the foreign office is without special information regarding the armistice proposal which apparently were published here only in part. The staff therefore was unable to express a definitive opinion regarding the proposed German Polish frontier.

The new frontier as outlined, appears at least as favorable to the Germans as the present military situation, and leaves them in control of the railroad line to East Prussia, which is a vital artery of communications with the troops operating against the Bolsheviks. On the other hand the demarcation line, which coincides generally with the language boundary framed by the Poles, deprives Germany of an agriculture region on which the authorities say Germany depends for large amount of food and grain supplies.

Turkey To Lose All Ground In Europe

New states are to be carved out of belligerent countries. Advocates of immediate peace declare that such readjustments as are necessary to proceed after the signing of the peace treaty. They say that Germany, Austria, Turkey and Bulgaria should simply be required to sign treaties relinquishing such parts of former territories as are required to form new states and rectify old boundaries.

What is to become of Turkey? Will the peace conference in Paris remember the outrageous perpetrated upon civilians by the Ottoman Empire and, regardless of strictly racial and religious boundaries, to divide turkey that it shall never again retreat the crimes of the past.

In a perfunctory way the future of Turkey has been discussed by representatives of various nations, but as yet no definitive decision has been reached. But that Turkey must be rendered in potent and that Turkey must pay in full for sins of the past is a premise from which all consideration of the question starts.

It would appear that Turkey is to lose every foot of ground she now possesses in Europe, and she will be forced back over the Dardanelles to the south east, and that the limits of her domain will stand only as far south as Syria and as far east as Armenia.

Turks are sure to be barred from realizing their old time mastery and undisputed domain in the Caucuses, Mesopotamia, and Palestine. In these regions, which for centuries has suffered under the baneful influence of control by unscrupulous persons in Constantinople will be forever free from repression.

Turkey, territorial speaking, will shrink to less than one half of its former size and will in great measure be dependent for substance on the outside world with the loss of rich agricultural and mineral lands to the east and to the south.

Though there has been general agreement that Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, will fall under French and British control and that these countries will be permitted eventually to emerge free and independent of any outside influence whatsoever, there is not the same intention or opinion or desire as to the Dardanelles in Constantinople.

The world has long considered that this great international waterway and the Turkish capital could be internationalized - has in fact they undoubtedly will be - since the treaty between France and England and Russia, which promise Constantinople and the Dardanelles to Russia, have been rendered null by developments in Russia, but in the meantime there exists rival leagues for eventual control of the Dardanelles and Constantinople.

The French government, declaring that Constantinople long has been under direct French influence, has set about to run things there notwithstanding the fact other European governments consider that if any steps be taken it should be by a group of nations and not one. The British on the other hand have dispatched forces to the Dardanelles and to Constantinople and dual authority has sprung up.

The actions of the French in taking control of Constantinople was to be expected, insomuch as the occupation naturally fell to the allied army operating in Macedonia under the French. That this was a fortunate circumstance for France in view of French desires to further her interest in the Dardanelles and Constantinople is generally conceded.

But it was the extension of military influence by the French in Turkish regions and the Italians on the Adriatic coast that led the peace conference to sound warning that unwarranted occupation of territories which were supposed to be held by international forces and that were to distributed equally by the peace conference.

February 28

Senators Say League Means Advocating US Sovereignty

“Free American government will be displaced by an international government controlled by European monarchs and Asiatic despots, if the League of Nations plan is adopted,” says Sen. Reid of Missouri. The Missouri senator delivered an eloquent appeal that this country should hold to the doctrine of George Washington and avoid entangling alliances.

When he closed his address the Senate chamber rang with applause, led by members of the Senate on both sides of the chamber, and in which the galleries joined. Applause in the Senate chamber is against the rules and has rarely been heard.

Following the address of Sen. Reid, senator after senator announced he would discussed the League of Nations this week, until it became apparent that this topic would occupy the Senate almost to the exclusion of other businesses until the close of the present session of Congress. .

Senator Reid, in attacking the proposed constitution of the League of Nations, declared that it meant the abdication of American sovereignty in violation of the Constitution night stays and that it would involve the United States in all foreign wars. He supported the charge of Sen. Boroh, of Idaho, that the League would abrogate the Monroe doctrine, involve America in all world conflicts and compel submission of vital American questions to a foreign tribunal.

Denouncing the League as a movement of internationalism, Sen. Reid asserted that the fangs of Bolshevism were plainly visible in the Leagues Constitution. “The provision requiring America to fight foreign wars”, he said, “was monstrous.”

“The League's charter,” Senator Reid declared, “plainly conflicted with the American Constitution,” but he said he would reserve discussion of that point until a future time.

“Shall we surrender with a pen what George Washington gained by his sword,” asked another senator. “Shall we repudiate the nationalism under which we have become the first people of the Earth for the doubtful experiment of internationalism? Shall we make our government of the people, by the people, and for the people , a government partially for the people and partially by teams and emperors? The answer to these questions is involved in the acceptance or rejection of the proposed constitution of the League of Nations.”

There was complete realization of the fact that the greatest contest between the executive and the treaty ratifying power of the Senate, which the country has ever witnessed, is now on.

Opponents in the Senate of the President's plan were not unmindful of the possibilities of the situation. They realize fully that they are facing a dangerous outlook. They are quite well aware of the possibilities of an appeal such as the president is to voice and other campaign such as he has embarked upon.

While declaring his full sympathy with the purpose to form an international peace tribunal, Sen. Cummings of Iowa, Republican, in his speech in the Senate, declared that he was opposed to the proposed constitution of the League of Nations because he believed some of its provisions would strike at American sovereignty.

Presenting the outlines of arguments he would favor, Sen. Cummings, said: “the League's draft presented a Paris would form a world nation, with polyglot and incoherent power which would submerge the American Republic.” In the course of his address he urged speedy conclusion of a peace treaty with Germany in immediate inauguration of reconstruction work too advert unrest.

Another senator said article 10, providing guarantees against aggression and for territorial and political independence of states, is the most destructive, unjust, and reactionary proposal ever submitted. “We are asked to guarantee that the boundaries of nations as they now exist, or when the peace conference has withdrawn the map of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceana shell remain without change forever.” Said the Senator.

Senator Henry Cabot Lodge a Massachusetts, solemnly warn the American people today to weigh carefully the Constitution of the League of Nations as presented to the peace conference at powers and to insist upon its fundamental revision. Speaking in the Senate, the Republican floor leader declared his conviction that instead of safeguarding the peace of the world, the League as now planned, would encourage misunderstandings and strife, and laid the foundation for another World War.

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