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m oomaroN. NEWS. oomqmu. GEORGIA. Thu-mun... MARCH 4’ 1920.
Letter of Phil W. Davis, Jr., to The Athens Banner
On The League of
Nations
Less Mauldm Sympathy For The Allied Nations of Europe
and More Affection for Our Own Is Our
Way to Save the World
To the Editor of the Athens Banner:
During the controversy upon the
proposed ratification by the senate of
'the treaty of peace with Germany
your newspaper has been a medium in
w hich various forms of published en¬
dorsement and advocacy of this treaty
have circulated. The plan of inter¬
national association or alliance which
• the treaty provides and denominates,
in deference to euphony and at the
expense of honesty, the covenant of
Hie league of nations has received the
editorial approval of the Banner. Its
news columns have recorded the ex¬
pression by ballot of the opinion of
the faculty and the students of the
university favorable to the treaty and
ifa adoption by the senate. Finally
adUrrtfoementB, ’
frankly labelled as
sUch ’ and therefore admittedly
paganda pro¬
for the ratification of the
!mU v - have appeared in broadsides
-
displayed upon the pages of this
eellent ex
and respected paper.
These utterances proceed from
a
source so worthy and deserving
of
considerate attention, so free from the
■ uspicion of venality and corruption
v.hicn ordinarily attaches to the pub¬
licity in favor of the treaty, so rep¬
resentative of the lofty instincts of
patriotism which animate the conduct &
ut Georgians, that they should receive
neither the charity nor the contempt
of silence. To the #.
people of Georgia
who love liberty, who cherish our sys- $r
uni of free constitutional govern- J?'
ment, and who still revere the mem
mies of Lexington, of Valley Forge,
and of Saratoga and who believe after
Hie most painstaking examination they i
• an bestow that this treaty, if adopted v
as written, would initiate the decay ■
and ultimate disaster of the nation,
the position of the distinguished $f !'
morning paper of Athens, its eminent
business institutions and the great
university of the state challenge and
compel an answer.
To this belief *
me of the Banner and
Hie respected citizens who have join
cd it and paid it for the propagation \
of the Wilsonian faith of the new in- t - " '
ternationalism seems a curious and
wholly inexplicable obsession. I have
seen neither in their argument nor ">
their exposition the slightest intima¬
tion that a single provision of the
treaty would benefit even one Amer¬
ican. l have heard no suggestion from
them that the wealth or the power or t
the -glory of this nation would be en¬ I;
hanced by the operation of its siren
appeal for the political revolution
which it proposes, and which would
obliterate patriotism from the earth
and invite the moral anarchy of the
world. They are undismayed by the
plan to remove the sdpreme power
over our people across the seas to
Geneva, later, forsooth, to London.
I hey are unmindful of the principle
that sovereignty, if the people shall
remain free, must be kept at home,
and that to this principle hardly half
a century ago this imperial state ded¬
icated her sons from the cradle to the
grave with the admonition of the.
mothers of Sparta to return with an
upborne shield or upon it. The my¬
riads of Georgia’s dead whose recol¬
lection lights up that four years night
1,1 martyrdom and despair should! rrv
out to us from her soil did we bend
i.ur knees to pass with submissive
breasts beneath the yoke of this for¬
eign alliance to whom the rights and
liberties of free and white Americans
iU, ‘ sought to be bartered.
Is there no limit to the sacrifice
which the supporters of the treaty
v ould require America to make for
uhat they fancy is the need of the
miter nations of the world? Is it not
enough that we have spent forty thou¬
sand millions of dollars, three years
of servitude under political tyrants
and military satraps, and that, we
share rh e sufferings of three hundred
thousand mothers who mourn and will
not he comforted for their sons who
ate not? Must we lay the sovereignty
ol the nation, the honor of th repub¬
lic and the liberties of the people upon
the altar of the new faith?
How proud and happy your state
and mine would be if she had in this
hour some spokesman who would pick
up this gauntlet which is a challenge
ro the manhood of America, and who,
like the gallant and splendid senator
from Missouri, James A. Reed, would
make vivid the memory of Patrick
Henry, whose defiant eloquence kin¬
dled a nation into flame; or of Robert
Toombs, who, upon the floor of the
American senate, denounced wilh leo¬
nine courage as deserving the ex¬
ecration of mankind another president
who plotted the destruction of the con¬
stitutional privileges of the people.
It is a somber hour in Georgia if no
one will rise in protest against this
bold betrayal of the rights of her citi¬
zens. Wretched and degenerate in¬
deed has this proud state become if
she permits without murmur the creed
of the stalwart democracy of Thomas
Jefferson and Andrew Jackson to he
exchanged for Hie commandments of
(he mongrelized internationalism of
Woodrow Wilson, Brnard M. Baruch,
Herbert Hoover and Samuel Gompers.
Reservation No. 2, proposed by the
foreign relations committee of the sen¬
ate, is as follows:
"The United States assumes no obli¬
gation to preserve the territorial in¬
: iV tegrity or political independence of
any other country or to interfere in
<•' controversies between nations—wheth¬
T- 1 er members of the league
or not—un¬
V der the provisions of Article 10, or to
f employ the military or naval forces of
the United States under any article
of the treaty for any purpose, unless
in ny particular case the congress,
\ which, under the Constitution, has the
sole power to declare war or author¬
ize the employment of the military
or naval forces of the United States,
shall by act or joint resolution so pro¬
vide.”
From this patriotic denunciation of
our independence the Banner and
those who have addressed us through
it of course dissent.
Reservation No. 5: “The United
States will not submit to arbitration
or to inquiry by the assembly or by
the council of the league of nations
provided for in said treaty of peace
any questions which in the judgment
of the United States depend upon or
relate to its long established policy
commonly known as the Monroe Doc¬
trine. Said doctrine is to he inter¬
preted by the United States alone and
is hereby declared to be wholly out¬
side the jurisdiction of said league of
nations and entirely unaffected by
any provision contained in the said
treaty of peace with Germany"
That is language which rings with
the courage of the hardy heart of Old
Hickory, courage of a sort to which
we have become wholly unaccustomed
in the eight years of the “May 1 Nots"
of Wilsonism. From that reservation.
I take iL you also dissent.
On September 17. 1796, General
Washington, after forty-five years of
contest upon the battlefield ami at the
council table with the sinister influ¬
ences of Euroi>ean power upon Amer
’ ican affairs, wrote to his friends and
fellow-citizens:
“The nation which indulges toward
another an habitual hatred or an
—at>v-
habitual fondness is in some degree
a
s’avc. It is a slave to its animosity
or to its affection, either of which is
sufficient to lead it astray from its
duly and its interest.
'So, likewise, a passionate attach¬
ment of one nation for another pro¬
duces a variety of evils. Sympathy
for the favorite nation, facilitating the
illusion of an imaginary common in¬
terest in cases where no real com¬
mon interest exists, and infusing into
one the enmities of the other, be¬
trays the former into a participation
in the quarrels and wars of the latter
without adequate inducement or justi¬
fication, and it gives to ambitious* cor¬
rupted or deluded citizens (who devote
themselves to the favorite nation) fa¬
cility to betray or sacrifice t'he inter¬
ests of their own country without
odium, sometimes even with popu¬
larity, gilding with the appearances of
a virtuous sense of obligation, a com¬
mendable deference for public opin¬
ion, or a laudable zeal for public good
the base or foolish compliances of am¬
bition, corruption, or. infatuation.”
In these words you will fail to see
the complete and lifelike picture
which the ti. ‘ idem of the United
States has drawn of the last. Nor can
I hope that the Banner and the dis¬
tinguished and respected pro-treaty
propagandists of Athens will approve
the philosophy of General Washing¬
ton expressed in the same remarkable
address:
“Excessive partiality for one foreign
nation and excessive dislike for an¬
other cause those whom they actuate
to see danger only on one side, and
serve to veil and even second the arts
of influence on the other. Real pa¬
triots who may resist the intrigues of
the favorite are liable to become sus¬
pected and odious, while its tools and
dupes usurp the applause and confi¬
dence of the people to surrender their
interests.
“The great rule of conduct for us in
reyard to foreign nations is in extend¬
ing our commercial relations to have
with them as little political connec¬
tion as possible.
“Europe has a set of primary in¬
terests which to us have none or a
very remote relation. Hence she must
be engaged in frequent controversies,
the causes of which are essentially
foreign to our concerns. Hence, there¬
fore, it must be unwise in us to im¬
plicate ourselves by artificial ties in
the ordinary compinations and col¬
lisions of her friendships or enmities.
“Why forego the advantages of so
peculiar a situation? Why quit our
own to stand upon foreign ground?
Why, pc interweaving our destiny
with that of any part of Europe, en¬
tangle our peace and prosperity in
the toils of European ambition, rival
ship, interest, humor or, caprice?
“It is our true policy to steer clear
of permanent alliances with any por¬
tion of the foreign world. Taking care
always to keep ourselves by suitable
establishments on a respectable defen¬
sive pasture, we may safely trust tc
temporary alliances for exiraordinarj
emergencies.
“There can be no greater error
than to expect or calculate upon real
favors from nation to nation. It is an
illusion which experience must cure,
which a just pride ought to discard.”
Let me assure you that tlie Geor¬
gians of the great majority, the ma¬
jority whom fortune has made voice¬
less, who must toil that in the sweat
of their faces the staggering debt of
the war that we have just closed may
he paid, the majority whose flesh and
blood has made its contribution to
turn to dust in the graveyards that
stretch from th# harbor of Brest to
the Alexander Festung at Coblenz, are
thrilled and inspired by the words of
the real patriots who framed these
reservations and by the old counsel of
the great Washington, To these men
and women whose homes must shel
ier the cradles of the soldiers who
will fight our future wars patriotism
is yet the noblest emotion that ever
swelled a human breast with solemn
pride.
Nor to this state alone are confined
the preponderant majorities who op¬
pose the mingling of the folds of the
flag with the ensigns of Europe. Last
year, when the eminent and splendid
senator from Missouri, James A. Reed,
concluded his eloquent protest fit the
senate against this giant conspiracy to
confound the power and to dim the
majesty of this nation a thunder of
applause and cheers shook the walls
of the senate amidst a storm of pa¬
triotic emotion without precedent in
the history of the chamber. The
voices were the voices of the khaki
clad defenders of the great republic,
its people and its flag, who bore from
the battlefields of Europe the scars
of their heroism upon their bodies
and a reconsecrate devotion to their
country in their hearts.
In the space which l thus am happy
to contribute to the cause will he
found the arguments in response to
the display advertisements contrib¬
uted to the propaganda of the treaty
by the excellent and respected busi¬
ness instifutions of Athens.
Less maudlin sympathy for the al¬
lied nations of Europe and more af¬
fection for our own is our way to
save the world.
I do not fear the result. When u
fairer hue shall he added to the color¬
ful miracle of the rainbow and .the '
prattle of her babe shall become a
discord to its mother's ear Americans
may yield to the suggestions of sub¬
tlety and caprice to furl their flag.
Until then its colors will remain un¬
cased and borne aloft as the glitter¬
ing standard of our liberty and our
law. and there is not enough of folly
or perversion in the executive, nor of
servility and cowardice in the senate,
nor of gold in the coffers of England
to drive manhood from Ibe hearts of
tlie men who stand beneath' if.
This is my answer to the distin¬
guished morning paper of Athens and
the fiank and candid allied and asso¬
ciated powers who have utilized its
space that the persuasiveness of their
prestige may convert some to the
faith of the treaty. Before they toil
further at the forge upon the manacles
to bind us to send our sons to die be¬
neath Syrian suns and Siberian snows
I appeal to them to make a pilgrimage
to the statue of the great Athenian
in Atlanta and to read his words upon
its base:
“Who saves his country saves him¬
self, saves all things, and all things
saved do bless him: who lets liis
country die, lets all things die, ignobly
dies himself, and all things flying
curse him.’’
In the presence of the marble like¬
ness of Benjamin H. Hill and in the
invisible radiance of his sublime and
immortal spirit they may receive a
converted inspiration and return with
’he rallying cry of one hundred 'mil¬
lion of Americans in the shadow of
this portentous and alarming danger.
That cry is as good and sufficient an
answer to “Brittania rules” as to
“Deutschland uber alles;” and by the
splendor of the •eternal God there is
power behind the words to make them
good: “America first.”
PHIL W. DAVIS. JR
Lexington. Ga., Feb. 10, 1920.
