unless we go over to socialization, or greatly increase wages, he, Mr. Lee, is likely to go over to the ranks of the American Bolsheviki. Well, well, that is just about where Mr. Lee belongs right now. He is a state socialist, and probably knows it. Then he and other leaders talk about "protecting the public." Protecting the public! Why, what they mean is soaking the public. They know very well that inside of six years, under the blight of socialization our transportation would cost us ten million dollars a day more than it would under private ownership; and, unless we agree to this hold-up, these state socialists threaten to strike and tie up the whole country, paralyzing its industries and starving the people. And this they call "democracy."

TREATMENT OF THE PUBLIC.

When these labor leaders assure the public that they will secure "immediate savings," they simply confess that they have been "sabotaging" for the past eighteen months, for, if they can economize after socialization, they can do the very same thing now and could for the past eighteen months. What is this but a confession that they have played the game

for the few at the expense of the many?

What these leaders are after is an increase of a billion dollars in wages, and then after a couple of years another billion, and so on. And then they talk about a surplus to divide between the dear public they love so much, and themselves. There never would be any surplus under socialization, but there would always be a deficit and the public would pay it.

Was there ever a more cold-blooded game of profiteering upon the public than this? And then they talk about efficiency through democracy! Efficiency, why, democratic control is the very thing that destroys efficiency anywhere and everywhere. The socialization of any industry will enormously add to inefficiency, waste and extravagance. This is proved by the history of public ownership all over the world.

These labor leaders say that their scheme will reduce transportation charges; they know better. They know that it will vastly increase the cost of transportation and that the public will pay the bill.

The socialization of the railroads. would be a gigantic crime against the economic welfare of all the people.

"Turn again, Whittington, Lord Mayor of London," is in the mythical class, but the story of the Scotch boy who grasped life's chances, made fortune after fortune, was a friend of the laird and the democrat, found

time for reading and for travel, and showed that he counted it more blessed to give than to receive, is known of all men.

Andrew Carnegie had plenty of enemies. Still none of them will deny

that steel bridges have done much to lessen the hazards of travel, that Carnegie gave largely to men who had been injured in his plants, that his libraries range from Fife to the Fiji Islands, and that he poured out gold for the sake of peace. It is true that the small boy may avoid all the books that are worth reading, but nevertheless Andrew Carnegie has spread the masterpieces of the world's intellect before those who care to read. It is true that the greatest war in history has raged since the Carnegie Foundation began its work, yet this does not lessen the honor due to the Scot whose generosity outweighed his canniness.

Carnegie grew up in the America that saw unnumbered cases of advancement. Horace Greeley's journey from a country printing office to the Tribune is an old but not a forgettable story. From a workshop Stephen A. Douglas came forth to a series of triumphs, and a brilliant race for the presidency. In Massachusetts the careers of Henry Wilson, Benjamin F. Butler, Nathaniel P. Banks and Thomas Talbot point the same moral. Through discouragements and trials innumerable Charles O'Conor made his way to the front rank of the New York bar. Far out West, William J. Bryan's success is matter of history, while his laments that the gold interests destroyed young men's chances were interesting fiction. Without a course at West Point Nelson A. Miles reached the head of the army. With out a dollar Henry W. Grady scored one of the brilliant successes of journalism. It was not favoritism or in

fluence that made Henry M. Stanley. There was no luxury in the early life of Grover Cleveland, nor was a golden spoon in the mouth of the infant Westinghouse. Andrew Carnegie knew these lives, and he built up industries which have yielded to superintendents and foremen increases on which thriving merchants in the young days of Justin S. Morrill or Andrew Johnson would have been glad to retire.

In the year of Carnegie's birth, Jackson, the child of a poor emigrant, was President of the United States. In his childhood he heard of Stephen Girard's fortune, and of his bequest to Philadelphia. During his boyhood Henry Clay and Daniel Webster passed to their long home. He grew up with the country in which Bennett and Raymond climbed the editorial ladder. As years grew on him the Democratic party thought of heading its ticket with David B. Hill, the newsboy, and still later, with John A. Johnson, the penniless child of an inebriate from Northern Europe.

It is easy to say that all those whom we have named were of more than ordinary capacity, but in county after county and town after town there are life stories full of encouragement. A poor boy with mechanical aptitude worked his way to success. Brains and industry carried somebody to a college chair, or a medical practice. A venerable judge has just referred to his boyhood experiences driving sheep to market. One can hardly pass a day without hearing of some case illustrative of America's opportunities.

We have, following the wise counsel of Washington and the fathers of the Republic, kept clear of entangling alliances with all foreign governments. The proposition now is very plain that we abandon that policy, and, as an inevitable result of that abandonment, enter at once into partnership and alliance with the politics, intrigue, wars and revolutions, and all the ferment of racial discord and European ambitions and selfishness with which we have wisely not meddled since we have been a nation. Under this policy we have grown in greatness and independence, and by reason of it have been able to wield an influence, and enact a righteous part in world affairs, that we could not, had we been entangled in such a league or alliance as is now proposed.

If we are to depart from this lifelong policy, we must do it within the limits of our constitutional powers, taking every precaution to safeguard and protect our government and its institutions as established under our Constitution. In a number of respects, most vital and all-important to us, the covenant as presented violates that to a most astonishing extent. If we are to enter upon this new policy -this anti-Washington and antiAmerican policy of forming entang

eign government that desires our partnership then these several provisions violative of our Constitution and our country's domestic peace and safety, must be eliminated, amended, or rendered inoperative by wise and sufficient reservations to insure the greatest measure of safety. No precautionary measure should be neglected if we are to do this unprecedented thing.

I have little heart in the success of the adventure on which we are asked to embark this nation. It is not the sort of a league that the people envisioned nor political parties put into their platforms. It is a most wild and visionary experiment that is proposed in which ours is to be the performance of the greater part with the least authority and freedom of action given us in which to do it. We are asked to surrender a measure of our national sovereignty to an international or supergovernment. To state it more understandably to the average American citizen, we are invited into an international corporation in which we are allotted a small per cent of the stock and given a single member upon the board of directors. We are expected to supply, in return for this the bulk of the capital for its operation; a capital that is represented by not only money and its equivalent in supplies and credit, but in armies and in ships in all parts of the world. Is there any business man possessed of large capital who would for a second, listen to

any such absurd proposition as that? We are to underwrite the peace of the world, and we are told that the world is looking hopefully to us to do this thing. Is there any wonder that it is? Do you blame the world for looking hopefully to us, prayerfully and tearfully, to do this thing? Particularly those parts of the world, those governments, which, so far as the terms of the peace treaty are concerned, have profited much, and have, so far as that document discloses, sacrificed little, if anything at all, to that high and vague idealism of which we hear so much and about which we know so very little.

We are told that the people want the scheme approved and adopted by the Senate without let or hindrance, and we are told that the soldiers who gave their lives gave them for this precious document of un-Americanism and of internationalism, and the soldiers who survived the hell of battles are as eager for it. I most emphatically deny that this is true, and I as unhesitatingly assert that it is just the reverse. I was a soldier in this great war, and a soldier in the war with Spain. I think that I know the soldier, and I feel that I am as competent to speak for him as those who were at no time his comrades in arms. We talked this thing over in France, in billet and camp. There was no diluted Americanism in that talk. It was straight-from-the-shoulder Americanism; a nationalism without alloy. They wanted no tangled-up alliances with any European government whatsoever. They wanted to "finish the job" and get home, and keep out

of any European mess, but ready and prepared to "go in" if, as Germany did, any challenged our rights and our liberties. That was the soldier sentiment in Europe when I embarked for home, and that is the soldier sentiment I have found existing here since I returned. As to the civilian public at large, I can speak for only that part of it which resides within the State of West Virginia. I can do this without any hesitation whatsoever. The great majority of the people of the State I have the honor to represent in the United States Senate, are unquestionably and unalterably opposed to the covenant of the League of Nations as finally brought home by the President and presented to the Senate.

As it is now, or as it may be, this is not the kind of a League of Nations that the American people had hoped for and expected. The more clearly the issue is understood by them, the more apparent this will become. The price that they are asked to pay is too great for the uncertain peace and protection that the framers of the covenant, more than the covenant itself, promise. We should try again. Try to get a league of some other kind that will more certainly guarantee world peace; assuredly one that will not compel us to surrender any of our sovereignty, our nationalism, our sacred liberties and institutions. The present scheme, in my judgment, lets us in for endless years of trouble, warfare in all parts of the world, material losses beyond computation and, in the end, assures us the enmity and jealousy of the world.