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About The Columbia sentinel. (Harlem, Ga.) 1882-1924 | View Entire Issue (April 11, 1919)
Vol. 3? EDITORIALS AND SHORT COMMENTS ON THINGS IN GENERAL THOS. E. WATSON. Can You Ever Expect a Speech More Divine Than This ? Sons of Belial! You have wandered far from the paths of righteousness: you have lingered at the fleshpots and bartered birthrights for pottage. Nevertheless, it is vouchsafed to you to listen, at rare intervals, to strains of celestial music, as from harps of a thousand strigs, exquisitely pouched by seraphic hands. Need I say that the latest and divinest melody calling upon the sons of Belial to rise up, and march to the very top of the Mountain of Transfiguration, is periodically furnished by our Presidential Apos¬ tle to Humanity. Consider the sublime address, of Jan. 22, 1917, made to an awe-struck and spell-bound Congress, by the Chief Executive of us American sons of Belial. Lest you may have forgotten this sublime ad¬ dress, I will refresh your memory by a few quota¬ tions. While you are reading and weighing these quotations, let your mind dwell, a little bit, upon the! Peace Conference which doeSn’t make peace, upon the League of Nations which doesn’t buck up, upon the armistice which doesn’t stop the fighting, and upon the Wilsonian idealjsm which doesn’t prevent each nation—including this one—from trying to overreach the others, in their secret jug glings behind the locked and guarded doors in Paris. January 22, 1917! Remember the date: it was along about that time that Ambassador Gerard as sured the Kaiser, in substance, that he had no bet¬ ter friend than the United States. President Wilson told Congress that, on the 18th of December, 1916, he had written to the war¬ ring nations a note substantially in these words: “May / not ask upon what terms you will firing f" ’ \ cease _ The President told Congress that the Central Powers^-Germany, Austria-Hungary—had ro¬ bed, proposing a general conference, for the pur¬ pose of agreeing upon terms of peace. The President told Congress that the Entente — England, Russia, France and Italy— had replied 3 tating the guarantees and reparations demanded of the Central Powers. President Wilson told Congress that, “We arc much nearer a definite discussion of the peace which shall end the present war." Nearer to peace! If our President had to make a living as a prophet, he’d starve to death inside of 90 days. For, after having declared that his peace-mak¬ Bernard er note of December, 1916—out of which Baruch and among ’em, on the inside, coined much money—had brought the world nearer to peace, Wilsomhimself saw red, in less than 90 days, and he himself plunged into the war, “with proud punctilio.” become Rarely has a peace-maker so quickly a belligerent. . ou^' The President reminded Congress that forefathers established this’government “with the high and honorable hope that it would show man¬ kind the way to liberty.” This statement, which finds no support in the written Preamble to our Constitution—where the purposes of our forefathers are plainly declared— loses sight of the fact that democratic forms of governments are as old as the hills. Slavic democracies, Teutonic democracies, Latin democracies, Gaulic democracies, Swiss Confederations (not to mention those of Greece and Rome) had for ages shown mankind the way to liberty. - 1 The trouble with those democracies, as with ours, was that they produced a Privileged Class, and this aristocratic class transformed democracies into monarchies. We are undergoing a similar transformation. Continuing his address to Congress^ the Presi¬ dent said: “ Only a tranquil Europe can be a stable Europe." * Thus Europe was lifted into the President’s lap, adopted as the President’s ward, and its fret¬ ful crying made the object'of the President’s Sooth¬ ing Syrup. With what results? Why, the baby squalls worse than ever. t Europe ungratefully refuses to he tranquilized: Europe declines to be stableized: it is willing to be Hooverized: it loves the American sugar-teats, but it balks at tranquility and stability, dictated by an American President who went to war at the elev enth hour. Is that unnatural? No: it is human. Continuing his noble speech, the' President said to Congress, that he had received assurance from England-France-Italy-Russia, to the effect that they desired a “peace without victory Here our prophet fell down, again. In less (CONTINUED ON PAGE TWO.) ♦ ♦ A Price $2.00 Per Year* CAN THE SENATE CHANGE OUR FORM OF GOVERNMENT ? THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A LEaSjE , A TREATY, AND AN ALLIANCE. With the utmost confidence I lay down the proposition, that neither the President nor the Senate, nor boui combined, has the authority tqj surrender the Sovereignty of these United States to any sort of League of foreign nations. j I defy Mr. Taft, "Mr. Root, Mr. Knox, Mr. Wickersham, or any other constitutional lawyer, to refute my statement of the haw. The Preamble of the U. S. Constitution most positively declares that it contemplated a central government for these States, only. JtutWflge Washington, Franklin, Hamilton, Randolph, and Madison were practical men, not fantastic idealists. They took mankind as they found it, and they had no'thought -of recreating the apple-damned descendants of Adam and Eve. Those level headed forefathers of ours were not deraming of Utopias, Elysiums, of federated Gardens of Eden: no! they left it to youthful poes, like Tennyson, to see heavenly visions of a Federation of the World. Our forefathers sagely deliberated over sever¬ al plans of a Union of separate, - independent, sov¬ ereign States, and the result of their deliberations was our Constitution, upon which Mr. Gladstone bestowed such a lofty tribute. In urging the people to adopt this Constitu¬ tion, its authors were at least as earnest a‘nd disin¬ terested and patriotic as are Messrs. Taft, Knox, Root and Wickersham. The burden of championship was borne l^y Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay; and in advocating the adoption of the new Union, these Fathers called it by the various names of “Federation,” “League," and “Union.” The general impression sought to be made W these champions was, that the new Union, outlined in the Constitution, would not interfere with the perfect independence and sovereignty of the States, except in so far as the States had expressly surren dered to the Central Government certain specified portions of State sovereignty. On the contrary, the opponents of the Consti¬ tution of 1787 contended that the proposed new Union, or League, would gradually absorb the reserved rights of the States and would gravitate toward a centralized, monarchical nationality. These opponents were Patrick Henry, Luther Martin, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason, and many other true men who had proved their intense patriotism in the War himself of Independence. Thomas Jefferson saw the dangers of federal usurpation, and he never ceased to warn his countrymen against the life-term Federal Judges. Apparently, it did not occur fo Mr. Jefferson that a time would ever come when the President, the Heads of Departments, the Congress, and the Administration newspapers, would outrun the Fed¬ eral Judges in the hot race of usurpation. The Constitution says, repeatedly, “the United States are :” The usurpers say,' “ the United States is.” And they is! They is so monarchical that Con¬ gress gives to the President unlimited powers, gives itself unlimited powers, gives newly created Commissions unlimited powers, gives Heads of Departments unlimited powers, leaving poor little Governors of poor little States to grope around in the murk of semi-oblivion, taking such short and timid steps that they remind you of a fashionable woman dressed in one of these millinery sausage holders. Thus does a League inevitably evolve a con solidation of power, at the centre. Patrick Henry saw it, did his level best to make others see it, and came very near to success: his speeches in the Virginia Convention foretold exactly what his happened. Nothing that was ever said by the Hebrew prophets was ever more impressively prophetic. The curse of Cassandra outlives the ages: to, a few it is given to look into the future and to fore¬ tell; but these inspired few have not the gift of inspiring belief. The U. S. Constitution concedes to the United States the authority to make a Treaty —not an Al¬ liance or a League. equall, Treaties are agreements between who re¬ main equal, afterwards as well as before. Neither party to a treaty yields any of its sov¬ ereignty to the other. The treaty is merely a contract which binds each party according to its terms, just as indiv¬ iduals in private life may form a partnership for the purpose of farming, merchandising, sawmilling, cattle raising, brokerage etc. The members of (the firm retain their complete Harlem , fia., April II, 1919. personal independence, none of the partners giving up any particle of his individual rights, privileges, or freedom, The United States surrendered to the Presi dent and the Senate the power to make’ treaties: from uihat source do the President and the Senate derive this astounding authority which they have so recently and so coolly assumed f Treaties may be made separately with every nation of earth; but a League is altogether a differ¬ ent thing. It would be manifestly impossible for this Government (or any other) to become a mejn ber of several distinct, separate Leagues. Exercise your common sense! Doesn’t it tell you that there is no likeness whatever of a treaty to a League f Even an Alliance is different, both from a ! re ^. v and a Dengue, in that an Alliance is usually limited to definite purposes of war or peace, and does not require any of the allied nations to “give up something” to a Central authority. There was no surrender of national sovereign¬ ty in the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy: there was none in the recent Alliance be¬ tween Germany, Austria, and Turkey: there was none in the agreement between France, England and Russia. In the great European alliances negotiated by William Pitt, in England’s long struggle with Napoleon, none of,the Allies gave up an iota of national sovereignty. It was well understood in 1917 that this Gov¬ ernment had no right to enter into European al¬ liances: therefore, President Wilson came to an agreement with England and France but did not sign as partner to an alliance. Now, however, he proposes to sign away the sovereign independence of his country by making it, willy nitty, a charter member of a Union of Nations! And the Senate, with superb coolness, assumes that the final decision rests with itself! Can’t a one-eyed mule see that a League is a new form of government, in which this Republic would occupy precisely the same relative position that Georgia occupied in the new Federation of 1787? Each nation of the League would be placed where the Constitution of 1787 placed New York, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the Carolinas. It took the Thirteen States more than half a century to find out that they had become provinces of a central impetialism ; but they at length found it out—amid the carnage of a Civil War that set brothers to butchering brothers. In the new Union of 1787, there were Thirteen States recently victorious in a war of seven years in which they had fought together for a common cause: the people of those States were of one race, language, and creed: yet their\ Union led to Civil War, after decades of constant and embittering quarrels. What was the real cause of this Civil War? Economical antagonism and inherited preju¬ dice. | The Northern exploiters of free labor, hated , thern exploiters of slave labor; and the New ® ou f n S 1 and Puritan, hating the Southern Cavalier, i a in our Civil War, the struggle which had been inherited % from Oliver Cromwell. I George Washington virtually made the law | against foreign alliances : he never dreamed .of a moon-eyed President and a foreign League, domi¬ nating America. Washington foresaw entanglements in Euro¬ pean politics, but he did not foresee a pusillanimous surrender of American Independence. His sword had won what Jefferson’s pen had claimed, and what Henry’s genius had dared to suggest: therefore, Washington would have been indignantly incredulous, if any skeptic had ven tured to say that an American President would be the apostate, the renegade, who would lay Ameri¬ can freedom■ at the feet of England and Japan. The Fathers were patriotically selfish: all patriotism is necessarily selfish: it begins at the home and ripples thence to the outer bounds of the country which holds the home. The Fathers were “Men of vision,” but they were not visionaries: they did not believe in run¬ ning to the end of the rainbows to find bags of gold. They were practical men, yet they fooled them¬ selves when they made the new League. They appeared to believe that a written Con¬ stitution could bind the strong as well as the weak: in this, they were deluded. They gave Congress power to collect necessary (Continued on Page 2) % Issued Weekly The League in the Light of the Past . One hundred years ago, the Holy Alliance, composed of the Czar of Russia, the Emperor of Austria, the King of Prussia, and secretly — the Pope— sent armies into Piedmont and Naples to crush the domocratic movements in those states. (1821.) In 1823, the Holy Alliance prevailed upon the restored Bourbon King of France (a papist) to send a French army into Spain for the purpose of overthrowing the Liberal Constitution, and restor¬ ing the absolutism of priestly- and royal rule. The barbarous cruelty which marked the sup¬ pression horrified of these democratic-republican institutions the whole of Europe. Thus a League of Nations, formed in 1816, and guided secretly by the Pope and the Jesuits, made it impossible for liberal ideas to advance. This League established and maintained a heartless despotism under which there was no freedom of speech, of *press, of assemblage, or of education. The peoples were utterly cowed, harshly op¬ pressed, and bled white by high taxes. Finally, this Holy League proposed to do in South America what it had done in Italy anl Spain: it proposed to send armies across the ocean for the purpose of overturning tire republics that been set up in Central and South America. But George Canning, the Premier of Great Britain, sided with the newly formed American republics: and he officially recognised them. He gave the Holy Alliance to plainly under¬ stand that if it made war upon South America, it would have England to fight. President Monroe took the same position. The Holy League backed down, and it soon be« came powerless, except to maintain Papal tyranny in Italy. Suppose, that England and these United State u had then been members of the League! What chance would the weak South American republics have had to maintain their hard-won in-< dependence ? No more chance than Egypt has today: no more than India has: no more than Ceylon, Mada¬ gascar, Algeria, and Korea have. Think of this! It is the lamp of experience throwing light on the actual operations of a League of Nations. « Again, consider the case of Greece: it is well known that she unaided could not have freed her¬ self from Turkish rule. She had to have the help of Russia, France, and England. You will recall that Lord Byron went in per¬ son to Greece, to actively assist “the rebels,” with his money and his counsels; and he died, really in the service of the straggling Greeks. Suppose Turkey and Russia and England and France had then been yoked together in a League which bound each nation to guarantee the terri¬ torial possessions of the others! Greece would have been helpless. No combined fleet of Russia, France, and Great Britain would have annihilated the Turks at. the sea-battle of Navarino; and there would have been no Independence for Greece , *, , But. go back a little farther: suppose there had been a League of Nations in 1776! In that case, it would have been impossible for France to have come to the assistance of the Amer¬ ican Colonies. England was then robbing the Colonies with' Navigation Acts which virtually prohibited Amer¬ ican commerce and manufactures. The revolt against Great Britain was, to a very material extent, instigated by New England smugglers, who detested the Navigation Acts of the Mother-country. John Hancock, whose name looks so big on the Declaration of Independence, got rich by violating the tariff laws of England. No American could lawfully make, nails; and a champion of American rights, speaking in the Brit¬ ish Parliament, declared the* tariff laws to be so severe that an American, if he obeyed these laws, would have to send his horse to England, to be shod. (Similar laws had destroyed the commerce and manufactures of Ireland.) Now, if England »had been a member of a Mutual Insurance Company of Nations, France would have been forced to' help England subdue the rebellious American colonies. LaFayette might have Been a staff-officer to Lord Cornwallis, instead of being the dashing lieutenant of General Washington. Rochambeau, DeGrasse, and D’Estaing would have joined fleets with Howe, Graves and Rodney, instead of hasten¬ ing to the support of the Americans. Frederick the Great would have been compell¬ ed to send his veterans—the finest troops in the ( Continued on Page Two) ISlo. 29.
