THE SHAME OF IT.

It is well for the Senate Republicans that the English political system does not prevail in the United States. Could Congress be dissolved and a general election held, Senator Lodge and his followers would quickly discover that their long-winded orations and demagogic platitudes have not convinced the American people of the necessity of remaining at war with Germany while the rest of the world is enjoying the fruits of peace. Carried away by reckless partizan spite and vindictive hatred of Woodrow Wilson and all his works, the Republican side of the Senate succeeded in so emasculating the Treaty that the Democrats could in honor do nothing except vote for its rejection. The efforts at compromise made by the Administration forces met a stone wall of resistance. Senator Edge, Republican, of New Jersey, said to the Democrats: "Here is the treaty. Take it or leave it!" The rights and privileges of the United States could have been adequately safeguarded by mild interpretative resolutions; the Republicans wrote in amendment after amendment--labelled "reservations"--with the avowed purpose of killing the Treaty, at what cost to the world they cared not a whit. The promises they made in the heat of war, the pledges they gave to those men who laid down their lives that the Senate might exist are as nothing to them. They see no farther ahead than the next presidential election; the glory of the Republican Party is greater to them than the welfare of the world.

The people of the country cannot be hoodwinked with words. They know the men who fought for the Treaty, and they know the men who pledged themselves to scuttle it. The victory that Senator Lodge and his partizan friends have gained is a victory conceived in shame and born in dishonor. It has put the United States on record as the only great nation of the world which refuses to endorse measures preventive of future wars.