THE TREATY PLANK

All immediate danger of a party split at Chicago over the problem of adopting a suitable plank on the peace treaty seems to have been safely avoided. The sub-committee, acting with praiseworthy adroitness has succeeded in agreeing upon a resolution sufficiently non-committal to be acceptable to all parties. Senators Johnson and Borah may decide not to "bolt," Senator Lodge rests upon his laurels with a sense of gratification at having overridden his opponents' objections, and even the mildest reservationists seem to have fallen in line.

Just whether the plank suggested by the honorable Elihu Root and welcomed by a committee ready to grasp at any straw in sight means anything definite is debatable. Its adoption has saved the impending pother which the formulation of such a resolution would arouse if left to be settled by debate from the floor of the Convention. It has met with the acquiescence of party leaders. When the news of its passage reached the delegates, it is said that a "wave of enthusiasm swept the assemblage."

Acquiescence and enthusiasm to the contrary, however, the treaty plank is nothing of which to be proud. It mentions definitely the fact that the Republican Convention approves of the action of the Republican Senate--a fact scarcely open to doubt. It goes so far as to agree with the Senate in opposing the League of Nations without proper reservations. That, it will be seen, is a very different thing from favoring a League of Nations with reservations.

The treaty plank as it now stands is a disappointment. Its strategic value may be great, but even greater would have been the advantages of a "mild reservationist" stand which would have given the opposing party little foothold from which to raise the League as a campaign issue. It would seem that Elihu Root has said nothing at all as only that keen legal mind could have said it.