Student Opinion of the Peace Treaty

Already it is apparent that the proposed referendum on the ratification of the Peace Treaty, to bring out an expression of opinion on the subject from students and faculties of all colleges and universities in the United States, will command unusual interest. Sponsored by the editors of the college newspapers of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia, the plan has already become a leading topic of discussion in academic circles, and from now until the date set for the taking of the vote, a joint committee will be busy at the Harvard Endowment Fund offices, 165 Broadway, New York, arranging the details.

One reason why the vote will be worth watching is that the promoters have taken pains to secure the approval of Senator Lodge and Senator Hitchcock to the form of the question. Originally it was proposed that each voter should be asked to mark his preference among four propositions, covering straight ratification and rejection, ratification with the Senate majority reservations, and ratification by means of compromise. But Senator Lodge felt that his position could be fairly provided for only by add-

ing propositions favoring a separate peace with Germany and advocating a compromise ratification only after insuring that the American views as to the Monroe Doctrine and other of the Lodge contentions shall be acceded to. The addition, thus necessitated, brings the list of propositions up to six. If, against them, any considerable proportion of the 35,000 or 40,000 faculty persons and the 200,000 undergraduates, in American college and universities, record themselves sincerely, the result will doubtless surpass in interest and importance any straw vote ever taken before. For the colleges and universities offer unusual facilities for organizing the voting, just as they provide a body of voters whose opinion will be peculiarly worth noting, especially as the faculty vote and the student vote will be tabulated separately. And the number and diffusion of the institutions participating will give a nation-wide character to the expression, along with a certain element that is authoritative.

That the secondary effect of the plan will be of benefit within the academic body is indicated by the Cornell Sun, which says truly that, if the referendum is to have full value, those who are to go to the polls on January 13, must post themselves beforehand on the Treaty and the League, and the Senate contentions. Fortunately the American Association for International Conciliation, of 407 west One Hundred and Seventeenth Street, New York, made the full text of the Treaty its monthly issue of September last, and the World Peace Foundation, 40 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston, amongst other helpful bi-monthly issues, put out one number in October dealing with Labor in the Treaty. It is safe to say that the academic consideration of such data between now and the casting of the votes will be of a highly intensive order.  --Christian Science Monito