WE ARE WAITING, MR. PRESIDENT
We Are Waiting, Mr. President WE GET columns of cables from Europe every day on the president's receptions and dinners and luncheons with royalty. But the accounts of his conferences with the...
...The American people want to know just what is going on in these conferences...
...The whole thing meant the making of a new map of Europe...
...Italy's price was the guarantee of large annexation of territory and the loan of $2,500,000,000...
...Also it was a favorable time to conveniently arrange some annexations, acquisitions, and "spheres of influence" of great value, for England, France and Russia,—then under the czar...
...We were guaranteed that there should be no secrecy about this business from beginning to end...
...These treaties violated every principle set forth by the president in his several messages and addresses, as the object and purpose of the United States in prosecuting war against the Central Powers...
...It is whispered about, that "the president is up against a stone wall f that "his 14 peace proposals have gone to smash against the Secret Treaties consummated by England, France and Italy, in the first months of the European war...
...From that time on the president was day by day in close and confidential communication with the Allied powers...
...If we are to have faith in the integrity of President Wilson, we are bound to believe that he had secured the consent of the Allied powers for the abrogation of the Secret Treaties, which provided for the annexation of vast areas of valuable and densely populated territory and "spheres of influence," for England, France and Italy...
...Day by day the public grows more anxious about the solemn business upon which the president went abroad...
...We were promised publicity at every step...
...Open covenants of peace OPENLY ARRIVED AT...
...Open covenants," after they have been made binding will not do...
...So is the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked for moment to upset the peace of the world...
...Here is the president's GUARANTEE to the American people that there were NO SECRET TREATIES STANDING IN THE WAY...
...These are the very words of his bond with the American public...
...Is it conceivable, that we were to join with them to achieve a peace, regarding the terms of which the president of the United States was ignorant...
...al, at the White House in conferences where the honor of every government required that all the cards should be laid down face up on the table...
...In this genial atmosphere, the final peace terms are slowly ripening into the binding covenants, upon which hangs the issue of the world's future weal or woe...
...These early "conversations" are of prime importance...
...We were solemnly assured that every step, each preliminary conference, by which they are "ARRIVED AT" shall likewise be "OPEN...
...In these preliminary conferences there is an absence of formality which permits a freer play of mind on mind...
...The president was bound by every principle of fair dealing with the Allies and the people of the United States to secure an agreement with the Entente, to set aside every provision of the Secret Treaties in conflict with the high ideals which he proclaimed as the chief objects and purposes to be achieved in the peace we were to secure by our participation in the war...
...On the very threshold of our entrance into the war, the president had received the responsible representatives of the Allied powers, Balfour, et...
...He could have proclaimed them in good faith to an anxious world unless he was assured that they did not run counter to binding covenants theretofore entered into by the Allies...
...To remove the last doubt he says further: "We shall be free to base peace upon generosity and justice, to the exclusion of all selfish claims to advantage on the part of the victors...
...We were to rush our soldiers to their rescue...
...Our co-partners in the great undertaking could have no reservations with the president of the United States...
...It is this thought that has been expressed in the formula:—'no annexations, no contributions, no punitive indemnity.' * * * "The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by...
...We were to loan them billions to sustain their tottering finances, we were to build for their succor "ships, more ships, and yet more ships...
...These are the president's pledges to the American people...
...The primary object in making these treaties was to induce Italy to break her compact with the Central Powers and unite with the Allies...
...Our soldiers dead in France, may not know...
...Unless'the president knew what the peace was to be, how could he in honor assure the American people that: "The war shall not end in vindictive action of any kind, no nation shall be robbed or punished because the irresponsible rulers of a single country have themselves done deep and abominable wrong...
...We are advised that the president has attended certain "preliminary conferences...
...The president knew,—indeed, the whole world had been informed, of the existence of these Secret Treaties long before he submitted his peace proposals to the American public...
...But the accounts of his conferences with the representatives of the Allied powers are barren of information upon the vital matters which deeply concern the American people...
...It will be a rank betrayal to swerve by one hair's breadth from the plain course which he marked out for himself...
...But our soldiers who lived through the fury of that awful carnage, our soldiers blinded and mutilated in foreign service, their bereaved families and the millions of our people who must grunt and sweat under the burdens of this costly war, demand the truth at every stage of the diplomatic game, from the first word of the preliminary discussions to the last word of the final conference...
...Aa the seed is sown so shall the harvest be...
Vol. 11 • January 1919 • No. 1
