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About The Columbia sentinel. (Harlem, Ga.) 1882-1924 | View Entire Issue (April 3, 1922)
SPEECH OF SENATOR THOS. E. WATSON AGAINST FOUR POWER FACT. THE UNITED STATES SENATE, MARCH 23, 1922, (The last week of the debate on the Four Power Pact was filled with dramatic incidents. Senator Watson had taken a most active part in the entire. debate, and this speech was the sixth he had delivered on the subject, A. L. L.) ■EVENING SESSION. The Senate, in open executive session^ reassembled at 8 o’clock p. m., on the expiratjon of the recess. THE FOUR POWER TREATY. The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. McNary in the chair). The Senate resumes the consideration of the pending treaty. The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole and in open executive session, resumed the consideration of the treaty submitted by the President of the United States, the British Empire, France, and Japan, relating to their insular possessions and their insular domin¬ ions in the Pacific Ocean. Mr. WATSON of Georgia. Mr. President, a lady of this city. Miss Lillian Scott Troy, placed in my possession this morning a booklet, which she has caused to be published. While I v have not had time to verify her statements, I have no reason to doubt their cor¬ rectness. Ordinarily, when a subject of one country pub¬ lishes a libelous attack upon all the people of another it is a matter of which the government of that coun¬ try will take no notice, it being considered an indi¬ vidual affair. In this case the publisher is well known as the author of several standard works. He is known to be the personal friend of the British ambassador, Sir Auckland Geddes. He is known to be a frequent visitor at the British embassy. He has been decorated by the Governments of Great Briltain and Japan, as well as that of Belgium. Therefore what he says against our people in general—drawing what Burke said could not be drawn, an indictment against a whole people—has some significance when we remem¬ ber that we are now- asked to entei; into an alliance with his country, he the friend of the British ambassador. It is said that some Senators from the South are going to vote for this revolutionary departure from our traditional policy. 1 want those Senators from the South to hear what this friend of the British am¬ bassador. this honored guest of the British Embassy, this w-earer of decorations from Japan and Great Brit¬ ain, has said about us as a people. Writing of the colonizers of Virginia and the South, Mr. A. Maurice Low says: In the early days many of them went there because they had no option, because they were criminals and paupers; they were transported by the Government as in later days English criminals were sent to Botany Bay. Think of that! The South compared to the slave colony of Botany Bay! Criminals! Paupers! So says this friend of the British ambassador, this visitor to the British Embassy. He further said: Some immigrants to Virginia were, to some extent, a shiftless and degraded: set of creatures from slums and jails of English seaport towns. Virginia, in whose Jamestown settlement was set the foundation of American democracy, representative government, manhood suffrage, trial by jury, while Massachusetts was making the experiment of a the¬ ocracy which did not work. He further said: The men who have made some parts of the South a dark and bloody ground, where to this day the only law known is the law of the rifle and the knife, where dense ignorance prevails and su¬ perstition holds sway, are the legacy of this colo nfal era and its social system. And from the South have come so nuny of the Intellectual stars that light the galaxy of America’s pride, that one could stand an hour, mentioning their names and giviug a brief summary of their deeds, From the South has gone much of the money and the missionaries which converted Korea to Christianity, ^which. Japan is now trying to stamp out. Tho negro fastened his own weakness, his shiftlessness, and Ills slackness upon the Southern¬ er. In the South, as elsewhere, we have our shiftless clgS3 of negroes, butHhey are very much in the minority. The greater number of the negroes of the South have learned., the ways of civilization and Christianity, and the tax books, the official records, will show how rapid have been their accumulation of property. Their schoolhouses and their churches compare favorably with ours,- when we consider that" a few years ago they were slaves. Mere justice to my black constitu¬ ents in tho Sta,te of Georgia, whose good will and con¬ fidence 1 am proud of, Impels me to say that they have been foully slandered in this book of the friend and guest of the ambassador of Great Britain, who flow has an office here in Washington City and a membership in the Cosmos Club—which ought to expel him. Blacks corrupted their masters and corrupted their morals. The effect of slavery was mors de¬ moralizing in Soutli Carolina than in any oilier colony. This "friend of the British ambassador says that slavery demoralized that State to a greater extent titan it demoralized and debauched and degraded any other State. I wonder if a Senator from South f’arolina would dream of voting for this damnable treaty. Mr. SMITH. Not this Se.nator. Mr. WATSON of Georgia. 1 know that. Mr. SMITH. The Senator from Georgia said “a" Senator. Mr- WATSON of Georgia. I said I wondered if a Senator would vote for the treaty; yes. I know the Senator's position. Again, another British writer, Mr. P. »A. Valle, in bis book Yankee America's Peril, said: Quite a few men in America are effeminate ' looking. Many of tho young men have quite nice waists, and then aro developed not quite so sturdily as one who has the «elfare of the Nation at heart might wish; in fact, not to put too fine a point on it, their development beneath the waistline is dis¬ tinctly feminine. i THL COLUMBIA SENTLnLL, THOMSON. GEORGIA. He then goes on to say: It simply means, of course, that from the tjpy who shines your boots to the Senator they are a nation of ‘'boodlers.” From the boy who shines your boots to the Sena¬ tors here in this Chamber, they are boodlers! That is not a pleasant thing to read from the bosom friend, the constant guest of the British ambassador, the man who belongs to the Cosmos Club, and who has entree to the British Embassy. Boodlers, bootblacks, and Senators! I see ope of them standing before me now'. Mr. REED. I will sit down after that. Mr. WATSON of Georgia. I read further: Yankee! Yankee! Yankee! Have you anything in your land that is not hollow? Tomorrow’s vote will begin to show. Tomorrow’s vote will show whether we have anything in the land that is not hollow. I am not drawing the inference myself. He is doing it. A little further on he said: The population of America consists to a large extent of offcasts from every land on the face of the earth. Now listen to this: By the time I had been in the States a month I began to ask myself was any woman in the land to be trusted. No virtue in these United States! An insult to your mother, if she is alivef an insult to your wife, if she is alive; an insult to your daughter, if she is alive; an insult to your granddaughter, if you have one; an insult to your sister; an insult to American woman¬ hood, for which every American man has been ready to risk and lay down his life if accusation were brought against.it, impugning its honor, its splendid elevation. No American woman pure, says this prominent English writer, who writes in the same way as-does the friend of the British ambassador, this man who is the welcome guest at the British Embassy and who we^rs the imperial decoration of Japfui, of Great Britain, and of Belgium. They may say they did not know he had said it or had written it or had published it. They will know it in the mojning. Mr. President, the junior Senator from Ohio, my good friend Mr. Willis, placed in the Record two edi¬ torials, one by Mr. Clark Howell, Georgia’s member of the National Democratic Committee, the other by Mr. William J. Bryan, often the nominee of the Dem¬ ocratic Party for the Presidency, now a resident of Florida. As to Mr. Howell, who edits, perhaps, the most widely circulated daily newspaper in the State of Geor¬ gia, I will simply say this, which the Senator from Ohio (Mr. Pomerpne) could have been supposed to know: In the campaign of 1920 Mr. Howell placed in the race for a seat in this body-the governor of Georgia, and he ran on this issue. He was not elected; he was over¬ whelmingly defeated, in spite of all the valiant service which could be rendered to him by my personal friend, Mr. Clark Howell. Had he been elected he might nave been, making a different speech from which I am try¬ ing to make tonight. As to Mr. Bryan, I would not want to say anything that is at al! malicious, although I have no cause tp love him. It will be remembered that he opposed the Spanish-American War, and then came, in his grand¬ stand manner, to offer his services as a ■ soldier to President McKinley, He went to the White House to do it, instead of enlisting as the others did out in Ne¬ braska. President McKinley made him the colonel of a regiment, but another man had to drill it for him. He was sent down to Tampa, Fla., where he fougnt sand flies and mosquitoes in the most heroic manner. There are no audiences down there to speak to, and President McKinley did not want him to get to Cuba, lest he spoil the plans of the campaign. He was kept at Tampa until he got tired of it. He wanted the war to close so he came to Washington City, wearing his i uniform, and implored several Democratic Senators to lend their votes to our Republican friends on tho other side of the Chamber to ratify the treaty of Paris by which our taxpayers invested $20,000,000 in buying property which our soldiers had won with their blood. He succeeded in .lending our Republican friends a suffi¬ cient number of Democratic votes to ratify that treaty. We thereby obtained the Philippines, and the Philip¬ pines are now being used as the excuse for going into this four-power pact. One of tile Senators who was persuaded by Mr. Bryan to vote for that treaty was Mr. Clay, of Georgia. I was a,t Mr. Clay’s house a short while before his death. He knew that he was afflicted by an incurable disease. !«[ his house and at his table he told me that his vote for the Paris treaty wgs th,e one act of his political life that he most regretted; that he had been persuaded to cast that vote by Mr. Bryan. The widow of Senator Clay still lives, and by the magnanimity of this Republican administration the widow of that Democrat remains the postmaster of her home town at Marietta, and I am sure if she were asked fo do so she would corroborate every word that I have said. With the solemnity of a dying confession Senator Clay ex¬ pressed his profound sorrow that lie had allowed Mr. Bryan to overpersuado him. Any -Southern Senator who now allows Mr. Bryan to persuade will carry similar regret to the iasrt day of his life. The other Senator from Ohio (Mr. Pomerene), who is also personally my very good friend, spoke of George Washington as being obsolete, out of date, old fogy, behind the times; that he had not dreamed of railroads, telegraphs, telephones, radio stations, airplanes, and submarines, or any of the new adjuncts of modern clvlUz ft tlon - antl therefore what he said about the fatal consequences of foreign entanglements did not apply. The natural consequence of the Senator’s, logic was that if he had known of the railroads, telegraphs, tele¬ phones. radio stations, airplanes and submarines he would h,ave withdrawn his farewell address. I wonder what the voters of Ohio will say about that matter in a few days? Mr. REED. Mr. President— The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Geo’-gia yield to-the Senator from Missouri? Mr. WATSON of Georgia. With pleasure. Mr. REED. 1 think it is very true that when Wash- ington wrote his farewell address he had not heard of! the airplane or of the automobile; he had not even heard of a Ford. If the argument is good that because he had not heard of these instrumentalities of modern locomotion, the principles of government which he an¬ nounced are thereby destroyed. I wonder what my friend, from Ohio would say of the Sermon on the Mount. At the time it was delivered, or shortly before, Christ had ridden into Jerusalem on an ass and He had never heard of a "Tin Lizzie," or of any of the modern appliances and yet some people think that the principles of the Sermon on the Mount live, notwithstanding mod¬ ern inventions. Mr. KING. The Senator might also mention the Ten Commandments. Mr. WATSON of Georgia. The line of argument pursued by the senior Senator from Ohio would, first of all scrap the Constitution itself, then, of course, it would scrap the golden Rule, and, of course, it would scrap, also, the Sermon on the Mbunt. Mr. REED. And also the Ten Commandments. Mr. WATSON of Georgia. Oh, yes; and also the Ten Commandments. We heard an eulogy- delivered here on Mr. Elihu Root, who is said to be a great man actuated by pure and lofty motives. Mr. President, I think that a lawyer who has consciously devoted his whole life to showing law-breakers how to escape the penalty of their crimes does himself become morally warped because of having done that. Let us see. When Mr. Root was Secretary of State under President Roosevelt he violated the honor and the contract this Government pledged to Korea in 1882; and, after having done that and drawn his friend, the President, into it, he went to Chicago and drove a knife into his back; he steam-rolled his delegates, and nominated Mr. Taft, who has placed his brother’s law- partner In the Cabinet, in which position that law partner of Henry Taft surrendered to the Sugar Trust of the Philippine lands, for which this Government had paid the friars $7,000,000, and he sold them to the Sugar Trust for less than our tax¬ payers had had to pay for them. Mr. President, it is a small matter to mention, but the four-power pact and its supplementary treaty show the punctuation of a lawyer, and not that of a literary mat). Having been both a lawyer and a literary man, 1 know the difference between the one system and the other. So I say a lawyer wrote that document, as it has the punctuation of a lawyer. It is not necessary to impute corrupt motives to Mr. P.oot. He is a lawyer representing his client, and his client Is the Anglo Japanese aliance, and he wants to change that contract in the interest of his client, and to give that client two more allies which will contribute to Japan’s military strength an lrresistable force already in existence. ’ We are told that this pact will exist only for 10 years. Of course, on its faco it is plain that it will for . _ il years. ... It is said ..... that nothing ... can . happen In „ Russia . in . 11 years. How does , anybody . , „ know that? A „ good deal is happening in Germany „ right , , . now. With , her abundance . . of . paper money she . is . industrially . . , . „ on ,,,,,, her feet, and she is again . competing ,, with American and , T iMiglish . . manufacturers , , , in nearly all the marts .... of the world, v. n deprived of paper money, deprived , . , of . cir- , eulatiem , ,. to . the extent of $2,000,000,000 „„„ ... ... , In two . years, are on the very brink , . , of , economic , ruin, . and , unless , our financial . . , policy ,, , is reversed . and , the money put back in- . to circulation there will ,,, be , no rehabilitation , , .... . of . our industrial and economic system. Mr. REED. Mr. President-- The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Missouri? Mr. WATSON of Georgia. Certainly. Mr. REED. Since the Senator lias been speaking about Mr. Root, I should like to ask him if he saw this article in the Chicago Herald-Examiner of Friday, Oc¬ tober 28, 1921? It is very short. It is by Osw-ald F. Schuette, a writer of prominence: Washington, October 27.—A prominent Amer¬ ican who returned recently from 'London and who had access to the highest British and American officials brought back the following account of British interest in, the American delegation to the Washington Conference on armaments. When President Harding made public his plans, the British Prime Minister sought to learn de¬ tails of the plans from an American in London who is known to sustain exceedingly intimate relations with the White House. . ‘‘Do you know whom your President is likely to name as delegates to this conference?” asked Lloyd-George. “If he follows the usual custom,” was the re¬ ply. "he would name Senator Borah, because it was Senator Borah whose resolution for an arma¬ ment conference really started the whole matter.” “But he is a fanatic,” was the complaint of Lloyd-George. “We never could get along with him. Is there anyone else wLo is likely to be named?” "Senator Knox,” was the second suggestion. "He is a former Secretary of State, a leader in the Senate, and an authority on international affairs.” ‘‘He is too . pig-headed,” was the explosive comment of the British premier. "Why does not President Harding name some one like Elihu Root? We could deal with him.” In this connection, 1 call attention to a fac simile letter which was printed on March 19 in the New York Amorica.n, on the letterhead of the United States Senate, Committee on the Philippines; in the upper left-hand corner "Warren G. Harding, Ohio, chairman.” June, SO, 1919. Mr. William F. Brewster, Edison Building, Chicago, III. My Dear Mr. Brewster: Permit me to make grateful acknowledgment of your gracious letter of Juno 28. We seem to be in essential accord about the League of Nations, and I quite agree with you that It has been helpful that we had pioneers In attacking the plan which has been negotiated by the President. I have been very much interested to note the contents of your letter to * * * What especially attracted my Interest was your reference to Mr. Root. I join in paying very high tribute to Mr. Root's commanding ability, but I agree with you that he is not infallible and bam perfectly frank to 3 say he has not been so helpful as he might have been in dealing with this matter, if lie had been free from professional entanglements whicu have committed him more or less to the League of Na¬ tions plan. Very truly yours, W, G. Harding. I think the two statements lit somewhat into the Senator’s remarks. Mr. WATSON of Georgia. Mr. President, they do. I had a photographic copy of that leter in my hands or on my desk when I spoke here the other d a v: but. it had not then been made public property, as it has now been, and it has always been my conception of propri¬ ety to not use a private letter in public without the permission of the person who wrote it; and not having that permission, and the letter not then being public property^ ns it is now, I did not feel free to comment upon it. What the Senator from Missouri has read in¬ to my remarks exactly tallies with what I was saying. The English Government wanted .Mr. Root because ha is their lawyer. He is the attorney for the Anglo Japanese alliance, and he is the attorney for the J. P. Morgan banking house. He is the attorney of the in¬ ternational bank, and behind all of this drive are the international bankers who mean to exploit China, Si¬ beria, and that island which, it is said, has as much mineral wealth as Mexico—Sakhalin. It is virtually a part of the mainland of Russta, but our negotiators said it was six or eight hundred miles off. Mr. President, the Senator from California (Mr. Shortrldge), answering a question put to him by the senior Senator from Missouri (Mr. Reed), stated to the Senate that he had run on the issue of the League of nations but he considered this nothing of a league ( and that therefore there was no inconsistency in his supporting this while he opposed the other. To show you how careless have been those who wrote this treat' and who have spoken about it, he put into the Record a clause which states that the United States do not. as sent to the mandates given to Great Britain and to Japan at Paris—mandates over those 25,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean. Why, Mr. President, the Yap treaty contains the express language “The United States con¬ sent to those mandates.” Which of these was written first? Here is the supplementary treaty, tUo declara¬ tion accompanying the above four power treaty. It says the United States do not assent. The Yap treaty declares that the United States do consent. Wliiqh was written first? Were they written by the. same man? Why could ho not remember what lie wrote? The Senator from California asked, “What is mys¬ terious about this?” Well, I think that is mysterious. the one, where we are told it is-merely a matter of laying a cable on the way to China, the United States .■are made to consent to those mandates—to consent so far as Japan is concerned in express terms, and By 1 lm plication ,, to consent to Great Britain because we can not consent , to the , one and deny the other. , That must * _ he manifest . to every intelligent mind. Yet here wa , have these , two treaties. , , The cable company Japan may J control , , , by buying up a majority of the stock, anti cen • sor all ,, the , news that , , we send to Uio East, , ’ and all that tno .. Last sends to In the Yap treaty , to us. 1 J we consent those , mandates , which carry out the secret agreement which Mr. Balfour denied, . and which, if we had known, ’ we would ,, , have required , to bo abrogated before ever T Gr ®f ^ Br „ ' ° tain U ( r boys T “ the abroad 0110 wc t0 say dio for we wiU * „ rance not consent; and for ’ > m 6 0t ier w ° d °’ And whispering I'll ne'er consent—consented. What sort of attention was paid to our national honor and our interests when Singapore, at the end of the Malay Peninsular on the China Sea, was classed as a Pacific port—a port of transit'through which passes the commerce of 500,000,000 people on the one side and 500,000,000 on tlie other, one-third of the human race? <« i Mystery? Why, thero is mystery after mystery in this treaty. The Borah resolution did not call for anything but disarmament, and the whole country gat the idea that we were going to have peace, peace, no more wars. and there was a grand floudsi and a fan¬ fare of trumpets at the opening of the conference in the hall, as I understand, where they were guests of the Daughters of the American Revolution. I wonder if those noble patriotic women dreamed that as their guests these men were going to conspire to surrender the independence, the glories of the Revolution, which that order was founded to keep fresh in tho memories of succeeding generations! We heard about the naval ratio, 5-5-3. We heard about the tariff that China was to be allowed to in¬ crease slightly. We heard about the submarine, tho poison gas. and all the rest of R. The one thing wa heard not one whisper about was this surrender of American freedom;- because you do surrender freod-qni when you tie your hands in a four-power pact or a pact with any other number of powers. It. cannot be denied. It you go into any kind of organization, church or lay, you surrender part of your individual independence. In becoming members of society the individual is as¬ sumed to have been willing to surrender a pari of his individuality to get the protection of the whole. That is the very basis of society; and what is tra-3 of society composed of individuals is necessarily true of a society composer] of nations. ' With whom are we going into a combination and against whom? We are going into a combination with a pagan Empire which is now waging war upon a Chrlstian-coiiverted country Korea, and is making war ( upon a Greek Catholic. Empire, Russia. We are pa¬ ganizing ourselves to assist the Buddhists to rob the Christians of Russia and Korea, Can that, be de'ended in any forum where reason prevails? Mr. STANLEY. Mr. President, will the Senator yield? The PRESIDING OFFICER. Does the Senator from Georgia yield to the Senator from Kentucky? Mr. WATSON of Georgia. With pleasure. Mr. STANLEY. I have heard much of this pagan alliance with Japan in answer to the beautiful beati¬ tudes connected in a smoky and vague way with tha treaty. The inference is that we are united with our Christian brother England, in the spread of the spirit of the Redeemer throughout the world. I wish fo ask one of the greatest historians who has ever adorned this body .(Continued ou rage Four.)
