Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him Part 33

I greatly value the expressions of your confidence and feel very much strengthened by them.

With the best wishes,

Cordially and sincerely yours, WOODROW WILSON.

Hon. Thomas J. Walsh, United States Senate.

While the President was in Paris, I constantly kept him in touch with the situation in this country, and that he was interested in bringing to the attention of the Peace Conference the cause of Ireland is made clear by the following cables that were exchanged between us.

On June 7, 1919, I cabled Admiral Grayson, for the President as follows:

The White House, Was.h.i.+ngton, 7 June, 1919.

You cannot overestimate real intensity of feeling behind Irish question here. It is growing every day and is not at all confined to Irishmen. The pa.s.sage of resolution of sympathy with almost unanimous vote in Senate last night is but a slight evidence of interest here. I wish the President could do just a little for I fear reaction here upon League of Nations. If this situation could be straightened out, it would help a great deal.

TUMULTY.

The President himself replied to this cable, showing the depth of his interest in the matter:

Paris, 8 June, 1919.

I have tried to help in the Irish matter, but the extraordinary indiscretion of the American delegation over here has almost completely blocked everything.

WOODROW WILSON.

On June 9, 1919, I received a further cable from the President, as follows:

Paris, 9 June, 1919.

The American Committee of Irishmen have made it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to render the a.s.sistance we were diligently trying to render in the matter of bringing the Irish aspirations to the attention of the Peace Conference. By our unofficial activity in the matter we had practically cleared the way for the coming of the Irish Representatives to Paris when the American Commission went to Ireland and behaved in a way which so inflamed British opinion that the situation has got quite out of hand, and we are utterly at a loss how to act in the matter without involving the Government of the United States with the Government of Great Britain in a way which might create an actual breach between the two. I made an effort day before yesterday in this matter which shows, I am afraid, the utter futility of further efforts. I am distressed that the American Commission should have acted with such extreme indiscretion and lack of sense, and can at the moment see nothing further to do.

WOODROW WILSON.

To this cable I replied as follows:

The White House, Was.h.i.+ngton, 9 June, 1919.

Thanks for message about Ireland, Hope you will not allow indiscretions of American Commission to influence your judgment against Ireland. Lloyd George's mistakes in handling this will be his undoing, for it has in it the elements of a revolution. It is our own political situation here and the fate of the Treaty itself that concern me. In this country the Irish are united in this matter and in every large city and town are carrying on a propaganda, asking that Ireland be given the right of self-determination. George Creel, in a powerful article yesterday in the newspapers, said: _Quote_ The question of Ireland cannot be ignored, either in honour or decency _End quote_. I trust you can say a word. Could you not ask that Irish delegates be given a chance to present their case to the Conference?

TUMULTY.

On June 25, 1919, I sent the following cable to the President:

General Maurice, in wonderful article in New York _Times_ on League of Nations, says about Ireland: _Quote_ One obvious need to complete the process of bringing all nations together is that we should show that we know what America did in the war, but there is another obvious need, which presents greater difficulties. We must have a policy in regard to Ireland, which we can explain to the American people. At present Ireland threatens to reopen all the rifts which comrades.h.i.+p in the war is closing _End quote_.

The New York Evening _Post_ of last night prints the following editorial:

_Quote_ Self-Government for the Irish people, short of independence, is a right and a necessity, and it is a satisfaction that once more a movement is under way for the establishment of Ireland on the basis which logic and history have determined--a dominion on an equal footing with the other dominions under the British crown _End quote_.

Frankly, this represents the opinion of the average man in America, without regard to race or religion. The arrival of De Valera in America is going to intensify the feeling and the Republicans will take full advantage of it. Now that the League of Nations is on its feet, we should take the lead in this matter. It would do more toward bringing about a real comrades.h.i.+p between England and America than anything that could happen. I think that the situation in Africa, India, and the seriousness of the situation in Canada, will inevitably force England to consider these matters. It is in antic.i.p.ation of this that I am anxious to have you play a leading part in this situation.

It would do much to make the League of Nations a living, vital force in the affairs of the world. There are no boundary lines between free peoples any more.

TUMULTY.

TUMULTY, White House, Was.h.i.+ngton.

Paris, June 27, 1919.

I entirely agree with the general tenor of your cable of the twenty- fifth about the Irish question and I firmly believe when the League of Nations is once organized it will afford a forum not now available for bringing the opinion of the world and of the United States in particular to bear on just such problems.

WOODROW WILSON.

Of course, the thing which lay close to Woodrow Wilson's heart was the setting up of the League of Nations. Unless England and France should consent to the establishment of a league as part of a world settlement, any solution of the Irish question through the influence of world opinion was not in the reckoning. The wise, prudent thing, therefore, to do was first to establish a world court before which the cause of any oppressed peoples might be brought. This is just what he had in mind and what he succeeded in doing. To have thrust a settlement of Ireland's affairs into the foreground of the Peace Conference and to have made it a _sine qua non_ would have been futile and foolish and might have resulted in disaster. Unfortunately, the friends of Irish freedom, deprecating and bitterly resenting well-considered methods like this, were desirous of having the matter thrust into the early conferences at Paris. The President knew that England would never consent to this and would resent any attempt on his part to carry out idea. If the President had done so, England would undoubtedly have withdrawn from the Conference and thus the great cause of the League of Nations, which formed the foundation stone upon which the Armistice was based, would have gone by the board. The President was looking far beyond a mere recognition of the Irish Republic.

He was seeking to accomplish its security and guarantee its permanency through the instrumentality of a world court like the League of Nations.

What would it have availed Ireland to have been granted Dominion government or independence unless contemporaneously with the grant there was set up an instrumentality that would guarantee and protect it? The only thing upon which the Peace Conference functioned was the settlement of the affairs of those nations affected by the war.

Why didn't Wilson bring Ireland's cause to the attention of the Peace Conference? was the query which frequently reached us at the White House.

The President in his Western speeches discussed this matter in the following way:

"It was not within the privilege of the Conference of peace to act upon the right of self-determination of any peoples except those which had been included in the territories of the defeated empires--that is to say, it was not then within their power--but the moment the Covenant of the League of Nations is adopted it becomes their right. If the desire for self- determination of any people in the world is likely to affect the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations it becomes the business of the League; it becomes the right of any member of the League to call attention to it; it becomes the function of the League to bring the whole process of the opinion of the world to bear upon that very matter.

"Article XI is the favourite article in the Treaty so far as I am concerned. It says that every matter which is likely to affect the peace of the world is everybody's business; that it shall be the friendly right of any nation to call attention of the League to anything that is likely to affect the peace of the world or the good understanding between nations, upon which the peace of the world depends, whether that matter immediately concerns the nation drawing attention to it or not. In other words, at present we have to mind our own business, under the rules of diplomacy and established custom. Under the covenant of the League of Nations we can mind other people's business, and anything that affects the peace of the world, whether we are parties to it or not, can by our delegates be brought to the attention of mankind. We can force a nation on the other side of the globe to bring to that bar of mankind any wrong that is afoot in that part of the world which is likely to affect the good understanding between nations, and we can oblige them to show cause why it should not be remedied. There is not an oppressed people in the world which cannot henceforth get a hearing at that forum, and you know what a hearing will mean if the cause of those people is just. The one thing that those doing injustice have most reason to dread is publicity and discussion. At present what is the state of international law and understanding? No nation has the right to call attention to anything that does not directly affect its own affairs. If it does, it cannot only be told to mind its own business, but it risks the cordial relations.h.i.+p between itself and the nation whose affairs it draws under discussion; whereas, under Article XI, which I had the honour of advocating, the very sensible provision is made that the peace of the world transcends all the susceptibilities of nations and governments, and that they are obliged to consent to discuss and explain anything which does affect the good understanding between nations."

Sir Frederick Pollock, in his valuable work on the League of Nations, comments pointedly on this privilege:

Various Irish writers, including some who deserve serious attention, have raised the question whether the standing problem of Irish autonomy can come before the League of Nations. There is only one way in which this could happen--namely, that the Government of the United States should declare Irish-American sympathy with unsatisfied nationalist claims in Ireland to be capable of disturbing good understanding between Great Britain and the United States. That is a possible event if a solution is not reached within a reasonable time, but it is more likely that a confidential intimation from the United States would not only precede a formal reference to the Council, but avoid the necessity for it.

The friends of Ireland in this country have often asked me the question: "Would Woodrow Wilson have intervened in behalf of Ireland?"

I can answer this question only by saying that Ireland has never had a truer friend than Woodrow Wilson. From the day that we went to war it has been his steadfast purpose to induce the Government of England to settle the Irish question justly and permanently. His statesmanlike approach to a settlement of the problem is the only one that holds hope of success.

As I completed this chapter, an article appeared in a Was.h.i.+ngton newspaper apparently confirmatory of the President's foresight, showing that by September, 1921, Mr. De Valera had arrived at the same view. The article seems to show Mr. De Valera as insisting that the British Government grant Ireland members.h.i.+p in the League of Nations as one of the guarantees of autonomy.

As for myself, I believe that Ireland is going to be free in company with the rest of the world and in accordance with a new world order which shall function through the machinery for justice and liberty which is provided for in the Covenant of the League of Nations, and is provided for nowhere else.

CHAPTER XL

PROHIBITION

One of the things for which the Wilson Administration was held to "strict accountability" was the pa.s.sage of the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution, establis.h.i.+ng nation-wide prohibition.

Unfair critics of the President, in their foolish attempt to charge the Administration with every unusual happening in the eight years of Democratic control, had stated that the President was the real motive force that lay back of the movement to establish the Eighteenth Amendment as part of the fundamental law of the country. As a matter of fact, during the discussion of this amendment in the Senate and House, the President maintained toward it an att.i.tude of absolute neutrality. While he was an ardent advocate of temperance, he felt that Congress in enforcing the amendment by the pa.s.sage of the Volstead Act, so extreme and unreasonable in character, had gone a long way toward alienating the support of every temperance-loving citizen in the country, and that certain of its provisions had struck at the foundation of our government by its arbitrary interference with personal liberty and freedom. He felt that the practical unanimity with which the Eighteenth Amendment was supported arose from a nation-wide resentment against abuses by the American saloon and the economic evils that had grown out of the unorganized liquor traffic. He felt that it was unreasonable for Congress, in the Volstead Act, to declare any beverage containing an excess of one half of one per cent. of alcohol intoxicating and that to frame a law which arbitrarily places intoxicating and non-intoxicating beverages within the same cla.s.sification was openly to invite mental resentment against it. He was of the opinion that it required no compromise or weakening of the Eighteenth Amendment in order to deal justly and fairly with the serious protests that followed the enactment into law of the Volstead Act. He was, therefore, in favour of permitting the manufacture and sale, under proper governmental regulations, of light wines and beers, which action in his opinion would make it much easier to enforce the amendment in its essential particulars and would help to end the illicit traffic in liquor which the Volstead Act fostered by its very severity. This would put back of the enforcement of the Eighteenth Amendment the public sentiment always necessary to the execution of laws. Satisfied with a reasonable recognition of their rights to personal liberty and control of their personal habits, he believed that the American people would be the readier to turn their attention to the grave issues of reconstruction and steadier in meeting these issues which would test to the utmost our capacity for progressive self-government.