The section reported to be added to the Covenant of the League of Nations does not accurately define or adequately defend and protect the Monroe Doctrine. The language is both labored and obscure and permits differences of interpretation calculated to defeat the very object said to be aimed at. Finally, the proposed reservation of the Monroe Doctrine as attempted in the added section, is inconsistent with other articles of the Covenant, and makes the League of Nations a double-headed or even triple-headed affair, with a "regional understanding" in Europe, a "regional understanding" in the Americas and a "regional understanding" in the Orient or Asia. The League loses its authority over the members of the organization as a whole, the Executive Council is shorn of much of its duty and activity, and the League practically falls to the ground, as an international institution. If this reasoning is correct, why the League at all?

The amended Covenant is not well received by the English papers, some saying it is inferior to the original draft. The London Morning Post refers ironically to the "new Garden of Eden, in which the Monroe Doctrine will take the place of the tree of knowledge of good and evil," referring to the "fruits of the Western Hemisphere being forever forbidden to signatories of the League."

The French papers charge sarcastically that the United States wants world affairs outside the United States to be regulated by the Executive Council of the League, but the

affairs of the two Americas regulated by the United States.

When the amended Covenant of the League of Nations reaches the governments of the several countries involved for ratification, it is not difficult to see that not only the attempted reservation of the Monroe Docrine by Mr. Wilson, but the entire Covenant itself, will meet with serious if not fatal opposition. There is nothing to indicate that the Covenant which Mr. Wilson will bring back with him (if he brings any), will adequately protect and reserve the Monroe Doctrine, for neither Great Britain, France nor Japan desires such reservation.

When the fog lifts and the clouds break, it will be clearly seen that the United States must protect and reserve the Monroe Doctrine by backing it up with force, and that means an adequate Navy and Army. These as the late Colonel Roosevelt said many times, are the best guaranties of peace. Belief that the Monroe Doctrine will be preserved by the added section in the Covenant of the League of Nations, as reported, is a delusion and a snare.

The United States can best contribute to the peace of the world by acting independently and protecting itself through the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine and adequate import duties. The first is as important as the second. Trust no League of Nations. Trust only one hundred per cent Americanism, and a powerful Army and Navy.

Under these conditions, with a world-wide discontent between the

classes, the threatened overthrow of established systems, an economic war right ahead, and land-hungry and trade-hungry nations on the East and on the West, it will be nothing short of national suicide to abandon the policy of protection and its corollary, the Monroe Doctrine.

THE REAL MONROE DOCTRINE.

The United States has no desire to police the South American republics; she has no desire to interfere with the internal affairs of Central and South America, unless so requested by the peoples thereof, and solely for mutual peace and human welfare. Every interference in the affairs of any island or republic south of her has been for the purpose of protecting and safeguarding the interests not only of the United States, but of all other people concerned.

The United States wants the friendship and good will of Central and South American countries, as it had it for seventy-five years up to the war with Spain. The United States saved the republics south of her, and only asks for sympathetic support of an all-American policy supported by the

Monroe Doctrine. This does not mean political and economic dictatorship, but a binding together in mutual trade, commerce and liberty, of the free republics of the Western Hemisphere. The safety of all lies in this direction.

The United States observes with regret the studied attempts of some who do not fully comprehend the meaning and scope of the Monroe

Doctrine, to secure recruits for the proposed League of Nations from South American countries, on the ground that the League will "free the South American countries from the restraints of the Monroe Doctrine." Bishop William F. Oldham, recently returned from South America, used these words in a public interview. He adds that South America feels subservient under the Monroe Doctrine, and in a League of Nations would possess "unshadowed independence." A regular propaganda is being put before the public of this kind and is utilized to break down the Monroe Doctrine in order to bolster up the proposed League of Nations. Thus not only the American policy of protection and also the Monroe Doctrine, but our long-standing friendly relations with the republics of Central and South America are to be sacrifice on the altar of a proposed "Covenant of a League of Nations." The promoters of this league are giving aid and comfort to foreign nations that shrewdly seek to tear away the Central and South American republics from the "sphere of influence" of the United States, under the Monroe Doctrine. In the approaching commercial war, England, France and Germany seek to break into Central and South America by breaking down the Monroe Doctrine. Thus are the shadows of economic domination and free trade, through Mr. Wilson's "Covenant of a League of Nations," gathering in the West and the East.

The real American spirit in relation to the Monroe Doctrine was never

better expressed than by the late James B. Angell, who in 1905 said:

It has of late become the fashion in some quarters to speak in derogatory terms of the Monroe Doctrine. . . But standing here on ground made sacred by the presence, the life, the teachings of that great Harvard Statesman, John Quincy Adams, to whose matchless courage and far-sighted wisdom we owe the declaration which we call the Monroe Doctrine, I for one cannot understand how any American citizen and especially how any Massachusetts man, can recall, except with a thrill of gratitude and admiration, that the brave Secretary of State was able to inspire the slow-moving and lethargic President to fling out the challenge of 1823 into the face of the Allied sovereigns of Continental Europe. James Monroe held the scepter, but John Quincy Adams blew the blast. The notes have never died upon the air. . . It behooves us ... to consider the welfare of all the states as well as our own, if we are to command the respect and the assent of the world. Adhering to the Monroe Doctrine in this lofty spirit, we may rest assured that our right to do so will not be questioned by any members of the European concert. Even at some inconvenience, we will continue to

discharge the high duty which Providence seems to have called us, to shield the territory of America from European intrusion.

I know we are told that there is no longer any danger of an attempt by European states to carve up and gain possession of American territory. How one can hold such a view, it is difficult to understand.

The Monroe Doctrine must be preserved at all hazards, for it means. protection. It had its birth in the prosperous times following the protective tariff of 1816, and was proclaimed to prevent foreign nations from assailing any republic, including the United States, on the Western Hemisphere, politically, economically and territorially. It was protection.

The Republics of the Western Hemisphere, including the United States, need this same protection now even more than they needed it in 1823. Save the Monroe Doctrine.

In 1620, the year of the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers, Jean Tarde, Canon of Sarlat, argued that as the sun is "the eye of the world," and the world's eye cannot suffer from ophthalmia, therefore there cannot be spots on the sun, the objects we see must be planets passing across the great luminary.

This is a fair sample of the ingenious, sometimes beautiful, speculations of ancient and medieval astronomers. Reasonings about the dignity of earth, the place it must hold in creating the abstract ideas of motion and space, were dear to some of the ablest men the world

has known. Yet Galileo's use of the telescope; Newton's long mathematical studies, and Herschel's vow to search out the construction of the heavens appeal more directly to us of the twentieth century. The metaphysical method of deciding what must be yields to spectrum analysis with its report of what is.

Down to the present day the system of making conditions and insisting that facts must conform to them lingers in the free trade colleges, though it has been driven from the observatories-in fact, it was badly damaged before we had many observatories. The worker in

mineralogy or in chemistry wants to investigate; the free trader prefers

to assume.

He still tells us that the duty necessarily increases the price, though Henry Clay, more than seventy years ago, refuted this remark. It is part of the free trader's belief that if a nation does not buy it cannot sell—why should it stop to notice that the commerce of the world is not between nations, but between individuals? Within a month we have had the old cry that wages are highest in the unprotected industries, and this comes from men who never say "unprotected" save when they refer to somebody who is protected by the absolute impossibility of competition. "A high tariff leads to smuggling," said Gladstone, indifferent to the vast amount of smuggling under low duties. "Tariff reduction strikes at the root of favoritism" is the belief of those who can ignore the collars

and cuffs of 1894 and the Angora goat of 1913. Benjamin Harrison was justified in saying that free traders "study maxims rather than markets."

Even today we hear of "the new freedom," although every business. man has found out that it was a finely chosen route to blockade and tyranny. Not one of the free trade. theories, so well phrased and repeatedly uttered, can stand the test of experience. Nevertheless, they are in circulation; they get into the lecture hall and make their way to the daily newspaper. The expressions sound well, hence they are repeated as the boys whistle the latest air of the music halls.

Assumption has rather gone out of style in astronomy, though we may have an echo of it in the assurance that there must be canals in Mars; but free trade still relies on phrases, though the underlying data be conspicuously absent.

R. R.

WASHINGTON, April 25, 1919. There are a number of Congressmen still in the city who think that Congress will be called together about May 1, and it certainly will be if the interests of the country are kept in view.

But President Wilson thinks more of "humanity" than of the country. The supposition on his part that

only he can properly do the work at Paris is quite characteristic. Already he has changed his views on the League of Nations and other matters under consideration there. But a while ago he was positive that no change would be made in that covenant. He gave out a statement blaming the Republicans for the failure to

pass all of the appropriation bills, which is as much lacking in truth as his other one about the League of Nations.

DEMOCRATIC RESPONSIBILITY.

The Democrats had control of both Houses of Congress, all important committees, and knew that the end would come March 4. The water power bill in which the rural Democrats were much interested, was sent to a conference committee in September, 1918. No report was submitted until a few days before final adjournment, and it was not even brought up for consideration in the Senate. The coal and oil leasing bill was sent to conference in May, 1918, where it remained over eight months, and then because of the pressure of business in both Houses was easily defeated. But the President blames the Republicans!

SHAMEFUL NEGLECT.

The navy bill was not even reported to the Senate until four days before final adjournment, and was not brought up for consideration. The army bill met with the same fate under like circumstances. The agricultural bill was not reported until late in February, and was never called up for consideration. The District of Columbia appropriation bill was sent to conference February 24 and was never reported to either house. The sundry civil bill was never reported to the Senate. The Indian bill passed the Senate with only an hour's consideration, but there was not time to consider the conference report.

Many other important measures failed in like manner. The $7,000,

000,000 bond bill got through because the Republicans patriotically waived their serious objections to it so as to permit of its passage. If Congress were in session now all of these important bills could be in course of preparation so that they might be signed promptly upon the President's return. But he chooses to hold up Congress, and make it impossible to pass the appropriations bills before the end of the fiscal year, and he assumes that the existing laws will be extended. In that he will probably find himself mistaken. The enormous lump sum appropriations will die with the end of the fiscal year. Republicans are willing to make the sacrifice necessary in attending the extra session, but President Wilson thinks his attendance in Washington is necessary. The Democrats had difficulty in passing promptly the rivers and harbors bill, and other such measures, and might have got through the regular appropriation bills had they taken the right course. There are many unnecessary sums appropriated in those bills which have small probability of approval, though items such as appear in the rivers and harbors bill get through because they create patronage. NO TARIFF BILL, KITCHIN SAYS

MENACE TO DYE PRODUCTION. Mr. Kitchin, chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means in the last House, says that he does not think that any tariff bill will be passed. That would give approval to Mr. Kitchin's course on the tariff, as nothing to change the law materially was proposed by him or his committee.