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THE GERMANS IN PARIS

IT is evident that Germany has made

elaborate preparation for argumentative resistance now that military resistance is out of the question. The delegation housed, secluded, and protected by France in a dignified and proper manner at Versailles will in all probability have received the terms proposed by the Allies before this is read. At this writing the date set is Wednesday, May 7. The programme outlined by the correspondents indicates that the German delegates will have a fortnight in which to consider the document presented to them and to file their protests and objections. The hope is expressed in Paris that by June 1 a definite point will be reached in the negotiations. For reasons which do not seem quite clear, the German National Assembly has been transferred from Weimar to Berlin for the purpose of discussing the peace terms; probably it is considered that this course would be more impressive, and that any conclusion reached would bear greater weight if it came from the real center of German political power.

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Characteristically, Germany has gone from her first extreme of offering to send mere messengers to Paris to the other extreme of building up an extensive and carefully planned body of recognized experts to represent her at Paris. An analysis of the composition of the delegation, published in the New York Times," shows that instead of six delegates, with a staff of advisers and secretaries, Germany is represented by about forty men of standing, apart from the minor assistants. The list includes diplomatic, financial, and industrial authorities of all varieties. Thus, not only are experts in iron and coal, in agriculture, in trade, banking, and shipping to be found in the list; but there are also authorities in art, in literature, and even in theology, for a bishop and a theological professor are among the number. Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, who heads the delegation, is classed politically as an antiSocialist, and is a diplomat of the old type who has always worked in sympathy with the German autocratic group, although he is called a Liberal Democrat. He has denied that he depends on inciting differences of opinion among the Allies; but he has certainly been one of those Germans who have shut their eyes to the knowledge of Germany's complete defeat. Dr. Maurice Egan, formerly our American Minister to Denmark, who knows Count Brockdorff-Rantzau well, “Rantzau is intellect personified,

says:

MAY 14, 1919

and it will require not mere idealism but
the most scrupulous knowledge of diplo-
matic tactics on the part of the Allies to
deal with him."

Edward David, the second in authority
in the German delegation, is a Majority
Socialist, has had much experience in
foreign affairs, and is said to insist that
any treaty of peace should be submitted
to the German people for ratification by
vote-evidently one of the many ways in
which Germany hopes to create delay and
make possible a period of bargaining over
the terms. Few people believe that Ger-
many will reject absolutely or finally the
terms offered, but there is every likeli
hood that she will attempt to drag her
hood that she will attempt to drag her
opponents into argument as to the con-
sistency of the terms with the principles
with which she alleges the Allies agreed
to make those terms conform.

JAPAN GETS KIAOCHAU

Within a week after President Wilson had issued his declaration denying Italy's claims it was officially announced that the Council of Three of the Peace Conference had granted Japan's claims in the Shantung Province of China.

Japan's claims are based upon her military success in capturing the German colony at Kiaochau and upon a treaty by which it is understood Great Britain and France, as well as Italy and Russia, granted her this territory which she conquered. Japan's claims are also in part alleged to be confirmed by an agreement which she secured from China in 1915.

without being assured that if she cleared the Pacific, including Kiaochau, of the Germans she would be permanently relieved of the German menace; and she naturally also wished to fall heir to any commercial advantage that the Germans had secured. So before entering the war she made a secret treaty with the Allies and also a treaty with China by which she was to have title to Kiaochau if she won it.

She did win it; and she therefore claimed it before the Peace Conference. When President Wilson announced that Fiume should not go to Italy because it was a Jugoslav port, and that the treaty giving Dalmatia to Italy ought not to be observed because it was a secret treaty, it was generally understood that Japan had very little chance of winning President Wilson's assent to her claims. The same arguments used by Mr. Wilson in Italy's case were applicable to the case of Japan. There was a rumor that if the Japanese claims were not allowed Japan would follow the course of Italy and withdraw from the Conference. On the last day of April, however, the decision of the Council of Three was published that all of the former German possessions were to go to Japan, but that Japanese troops were to be withdrawn as soon as possible. It was reported that Japan had given assurances that she would turn the territory over to China.

Against this decision the Chinese have made strong protest. They regard it as a high-handed procedure by which a group of nations hands Chinese territory over to another nation without any regard to Chinese rights. When it is said that the decision is in accordance with the treaty which Japan made with Great Britain and France, and that therefore Great Britain and France have no choice in the matter, the Chinese say in reply that that was a secret treaty and ought not to be observed any more than the treaty which handed Dalmatia over to Italy. When it is said that the Chinese themselves made an agreement with Japan to turn over Kiaochau to Japan, the Chinese reply that that was an agreement secured by duress and ought not to be sustained by a conference assembled to do justice.

The territory in question is naturally of great commercial value, and it has been made more valuable by its development under German control. For many years Germany longed for a foothold in this part of China, and found her opportunity when two German missionaries were killed by some Chinese. As reparation for the death of these missionaries Germany demanded in 1897 and secured from China Kiaochau Bay and the port of Tngtao, with a considerable amount of back country. She also secured commercial rights. In all this matter China was of course helpless. Consequently when the war broke out in 1914 Germany had a flourishing colony at Kiaochau and commercially On the other hand, it is said in defense controlled the Shantung Peninsula and of the President's acquiescence in this much of the commerce of that part of decision that, although his sympathies China. Of course this German possession were with China and that his Fourteen was not only an imposition upon China, Points sustain China, he had to decide but a menace to Japan. Japan was not against China, for if he had decided the willing to enter the war against Germany other way Japan would have withdrawn

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from the Conference; and with Italy out and Japan out, the League of Nations would have become nothing more than an alliance between England, France, and America, and would have faced the possibility of an opposing League or alliance consisting of Germany, Russia, Italy, and Japan. Of course such an argument can come only from those who have little faith in our allies and therefore small basis for faith in a League of Nations. It is pointed out, moreover, that whereas Italy was running a good deal of risk in withdrawing from the Conference alone, Japan would have run no such risk, for she was economically independent of the United States. So, it is said, practical considerations had to take precedence over theoretical principles.

THE ANALOGY BETWEEN
JAPAN AND ITALY

There are many facts which make the cases of Italy and Japan in the Peace Conference analogous. Kiaochau was granted to Japan by a secret treaty; so was Dalmatia granted to Italy. Kiaochau was won by the sacrifice of Japan in the war; so was Dalmatia won by the sacrifice of Italy. The question of Kiaochau was a matter of dispute between two allies, Japan and China; so were Dalmatia and Fiume a matter of dispute between two allies, Italy and Jugoslavia. Kiaochau is a point of great importance to the military safety and commercial prosperity of Japan; while Dalmatia and Fiume are points of vital importance to the military safety and commercial prosperity of Italy. In the question of Kiaochau it has been alleged that there is involved a sort of Monroe Doctrine for Japan in the East; but there is equal ground for saying that in the case of Fiume and Dalmatia there is involved a sort of Monroe Doctrine for Italy in the Adriatic. It can be said that whatever differences there are in the analogy between the two cases are in favor of Italy. In the case of Kiaochau there is no bonafide Japanese community involved; while in the Adriatic there are bona-fide Italian communities along the Dalmatian coast and at Fiume. There has been no report of a demand on the part of the inhabitants of Tientsin to become Japanese; while there has been issued from Fiume and from Zara (another city on the Adriatic) an announcement that the inhabitants desire to become Italian. Whatever need Japan has for the possession of Kiaochau for military defense is remote; while the military value of Dalmatia as a safeguard to Italy has been proved in this war. Whereas the dispute in the case of Kiaochau is between two nations whose loyalty to the Allies' cause is equally clear, in the case

of Fiume the Italian claims are disputed by a people who in part were hostile not only to Italy but to the whole cause of the Allies.

Yet of these two analogous cases, one was decided in favor of Japan, while the other was against Italy. Why? It is said by a correspondent defending the course of President Wilson that "circumstances sufficiently different make different treatment absolutely essential. Japan is in a strong enough position economically actually to carry out her threat to withdraw from both the League of Nations and the Peace Conference if she lost everything." The implication is that Italy is not strong. Why is Italy economically weak? Why is she dependent upon the United States

for the food and raw material and financial aid? She is dependent because she has been exhausted by her long, continuous war against the common enemy. The result is that Japan, unweakened by war, wins her case; while Italy, weakened by fighting America's enemy, loses.

There are certain conclusions that an

impartial observer might draw from these facts: first, that a League of Nations founded on the proposition that moral authority is a complete substitute for military force begins inauspiciously by yielding to a display of material strength; second, that hereafter Japan might be excused if she concluded that what really counts in international decisions is, after all, not a just cause, but a strong military or economic position; third, that China might well understand that her allies consider helplessness not an occasion for offering aid, but as an offense to be punished; fourth, that Italy might well understand the decision as a notification that she might have had a decision like that granted in Japan's favor if she had not weakened herself by fighting so devotedly for the cause of the Allies; and, fifth, that the United States, reversing the policy of speaking softly and carrying a big stick, had done much loud talking about principles but had yielded to the big stick in others' hands.

It is not likely, in the face of the decision in the Japanese case, that President Wilson's judgment against Italy will be finally adopted. Despatches state that the Italian Prime Minister is returning

to the Peace Conference, and that a compromise has been reached. There are reports that Fiume is to be temporarily internationalized till the Jugoslavs erect terminal facilities at another port, and then will become Italian. If this proves to be the final verdict, it seems as if it might have been reached without all this trouble and animosity. Can it be possible that somebody in authority had to experience this crisis in order to learn that there were other harbors besides that at Fiume available for the Jugoslavs?

LOYAL RUSSIA

Only those forces in Russia which make for law and order and against terrorism and class tyranny are loyal to the true Russia. Most powerful among these forces is the All-Russian Government at Omsk, supported in the field by the army of Kolchak, now cordially aided by Denikine. If the Allies and the United States find it wise to recognize any government in Russia, it is that at Omsk, not that at Moscow, which deserves consideration. If Russia is to be fed by the Allies, it is wrong to waste time in trying to induce Lenine to stop violence and stop war; the way to feed Russia, as has been said, is "from the edges inward, not from Moscow outward."

Recent news has recorded notable successes of the anti-Bolshevist forces. Kolchak has advanced to the Volga River and is to have headquarters at Ekaterinburg, where the Czar is believed to have been murdered. His forces now control territory from the Pacific to the Urals containing, it is said, 70,000,000 people. The Omsk Government, one correspondent writes, is aided by representatives of the co-operative societies, the professional unions, the Constitutional Democratic party, Social Revolutionists, Social Democrats, and Cossacks. It is added: "Naturally there are many shades of political opinion in this body, but its members have announced themselves as definitely in accord on two points-in their support of Kolchak and in the proclamation barring out the Bolsheviki." In another direction the Bolsheviki are being hard pressed by the Finns, who have even been reported to be on the point of capturing Petrograd. In Northern Russia the Allies continue to repulse attacks.

An appeal to the Allies to recognize the Omsk Government has just been issued by an association of Russian army and navy officers in this country. It urges that with small exceptions the antiBolshevist forces in Russia are working with or under Kolchak, and that he has succeeded "in suppressing the Bolshevist movement throughout Siberia, in establishing law and order in the regions contional spirit among the soldiers of the trolled by him, in regenerating the nayoung and brave Siberian army, and with strong administrative branches all finally in setting up a stable Government through Siberia and in the Seven River region."

As to the political purposes of Kolchak, who has been charged with personal ambition to become dictator, this appeal declares:

Anarchy is a brutal force; anarchy can be combated by force only; under the prevailing conditions bayonets must precede electional campaigns. Admiral

1919

Kolchak has stated quite distinctly and on various occasions that he is going to lead the Russian people to the convocation of a National Assembly; he took an oath, and as a man of honor he will uphold it, that he would merely consider himself as a temporary ruler, and that he would lead the nation to the polls. Anarchy must be crushed in order to give the people the opportunity to work out a national policy of their own and such a political status as would best fit their historical traditions and national aspirations.

...

It is for those who hate Bolshevism and all it implies to give their sympathy and support to every sound effort to unite the Russian people in a campaign for selfgovernment rather than to deal with the Moscow gang as if they represented in any large or true sense the Russian people.

THE INVASION OF HUNGARY

Pressure from without as well as dissension within has caused the downfall of the Communist Government in Hungary headed by Bela Kun. Indeed, in the first days in May it was reported that King Ferdinand of Rumania was about to enter Budapest, Hungary's capital. Bela Kun's rule has never been firmly established, and the Red Army raised by his followers has been far from formidable. The threat of the Russian Bolsheviki to send forces to the aid of the Reds in Hungary, which included an ultimatum to Rumania demanding the evacuation of Bessarabia, has proved to be an absurd piece of boastfulness, and the fall of the Communist Government in Hungary is the best reply to the Bolshevik braggadocio.

However much one may approve of the downfall of the Reds in Hungary, the whole warlike episode is a reproach to weakness of purpose among the Great Powers. It was their duty, during the period between the signing of the armistice and the completion of peace terms with Germany and Austria, to see that peace was kept in Central Europe. It is not necessary to pass an opinion as to the justice of the claims of Rumania and of the Czechoslovaks. It was not for those countries to decide where the line of territorial demarkation between Hungary and neighboring countries should lie. That was the duty of the Powers, and if military action was necessary as against Hungary, it should have been taken by the Powers themselves. At one time the

Council of the Allies in Paris positively

membered or diminished in territory (and the misgovernment in that country certainly makes her deserve drastic terms), the decision should come, not through little wars waged by newly formed countries, but through a serious decision reached by the Powers really responsible for the peace of the future.

The incident illustrates, as does the Allies' attitude toward the Russian situation, the fact that there have been lacking at Paris the clear decision and vigor which should have been the controlling element during this intermediate period.

THE GALLANT SEVENTY-SEVENTH

New York City last week honored and welcomed its Seventy-seventh Division no less enthusiastically than it did before the equally famous Twenty-seventh (which in its make-up was more a State and less a city division than the Seventyseventh) or its favorite "Irish Sixtyninth," or than New England welcomed its gallant Twenty-sixth Division the other day. If the Twenty-seventh helped break the Hindenburg line, the Seventyseventh cleared up the Argonne Forest and played its part bravely and victoriously in the great Argonne offensive the one big offensive carried on by an all-American army on a large scale; in it over 600,000 American soldiers were engaged and some of the many divisions employed suffered the heaviest casualties of the war.

The Seventy-seventh, made up of selective service men, was surely a meltingpot division. One newspaper writer says of its men:

Eighteen months ago they were a conglomerate mob of tailors, scions of the colonial Dutch " square heads," college men, stevedores, subway diggers, millionaires, bankers, crap-shooters, stuss-players, and gunmen. To-day, surviving veterans of some of the fiercest battles of the greatest war in history, they are returning conscious of a clean fighting record that gives strength to their claims of glory.

Among the things for which the Seventyseventh will always be remembered is the glorious incident of Lieutenant-Colonel Whittlesey's Whittlesey's "Lost Battalion." General Alexander, the division commander, has declared that the battalion, although cut off and surrounded by the Germans, was neither "lost" nor rescued," but that Lieutenant-Colonel Whittlesey, having been ordered to take a certain objective, took it, and advanced more rapidly than troops on his flanks and troops

behind him.

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forbade such action as the Rumanians and Czechoslovaks have taken in attacking Hungary, but their decree, for it was in that form, received little or no attention. At all events, hostilities ceased only from the heroism of the achievement, for

when the Hungarians offered territorial concessions both to Rumania and the

Czechoslovaks. If Hungary is to be dis

This version adds rather than detracts

it shows that there was no rash, reckless advance beyond orders or against orders -a serious military fault which in more

than one instance in this war resulted in tragic, purposeless loss of life.

Whatever their racial descent or social history-and every grade, high and low, was represented-these men were Americans through and through. Their valor and their patriotism were of the highest. They will take back to their homes the spirit of common American effort and sacrifice for the common safety and honor. And this influence may go far to counteract pernicious theories preached by antiAmerican Anarchists.

MAY DAY VIOLENCE

By a lamentable custom of agitators and "demonstrators," May Day, once devoted to outdoor rejoicing, has become the rallying-point of industrial warfare and anarchistic violence and in some instances of anti-anarchistic but no less lawless violence.

Such rioting as took place on May 1 in Cleveland, New York, Paris, and elsewhere was not on a large scale, although lives were lost and injuries were numerous, but is deplorable because it indicates ignorant lack of faith in legitimate methods of presenting reasonable claims or political purposes. Charges of disloyalty

and Bolshevism, on one side, and of brutality by police or mobs of discharged soldiers, on the other, intensify bad feeling.

The remedy in the future is in stronger and clearer laws defining or limiting the rights of public speaking and "demonstrating," and the rigid enforcement of law against any overt attempt to incite revolution or preach disloyalty. Terrorism may be advocated in Moscow, but it ought not to be conceivable in Paris or New York. Socialism is not to be brought about by street fighting, nor is it to be defeated by beating up even offensive agitators. If there are centers of objectionable agitation (as is alleged of the Rand School in New York), there must be law to deal with the pests, not angry mobs.

In line with this commonplace principle, Senator New proposes to reintroduce his bill forbidding the publishing or selling of books or papers which advise "the overthrow by force or violence or by physical injury to person or property or by general cessation of industry of the Government of the United States or of all government." Equally stringently the bill forbids the display of any flag or emblem intended "to symbolize a purpose to overthrow by force or violence or by physical injury to person or property, or by the general cessation of industry, the Government of the United States." This may or may not precisely meet the situation, but that some measures should be taken is proven by the perfectly senseless violence of last May Day.

The atrocious attempt to murder, by

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