THE TREATY AS THE ISSUE.

President Wilson's telegram declaring it imperative that the Democratic party stand as the uncompromising supporter of the Versailles Treaty without reservations, shows that he fails to understand the present attitude of the American people. Nine months ago a referendum would undoubtedly have showed a majority in favor of passing the Treaty intact. But the Republicans chose to use their majority in the Senate to play partisan politics with the document of Versailles until it has become an issue between a treaty with some reservations or no treaty. And the majority of Americans support the former choice.

A fact, not a theory, confronts the President. Of course he desires that the treaty be adopted intact, but that seems impossible. At the Peace Conference he wisely compromised on several points, following the doctrine, as he styled it, of "intelligent expediency." It was a calamity that the Senate should have played politics and refused unqualified ratification of the document that promised to mean so much to the world. But it will be worse than a calamity if the treaty is refused entirely. Unless a League of Nations to minimize the possibility of future conflicts is created, the war will have been fought in vain. The treaty with reservations is certainly better than no treaty at all, and on the grounds of intelligent expediency the President should compromise with the Senate on a set of mild, mutually satisfactory reservations, no matter how superfluous they may be. Posterity would vindicate such a stand on his part. But his present attitude can only stamp him as small, stubborn and out of touch with the electorate.