Irreconciliation

From Geneva, Switzerland, press correspondents sent out despatches that provoked excitement in the U. S. Senate. It appeared that at the instance of Austen Chamberlain, the Council of the League of Nations took measures to summon a meeting of nations next September to which it was understood that the U. S. would be invited, arid at which the matter of the U. S. reservations in joining the World Court would be clarified and the necessary acceptance gained for the U. S. reservations.

The Senate in voting for adherence to the Court with reservations provided that the reservations must be agreed to by all the Court members through an exchange of notes. Consequently, the State Department has sent notes to all the members of the Court, setting forth the reservations and asking their agreement thereto.

The British move at Geneva appears to have been designed to bring all the Court members together for a general agreement, so that neither one nor another might throw a monkey wrench into the machinery for U. S. adherence.

But the reports of the Geneva event, before the actual invitation to the meeting or detailed explanation of plans or purposes, aroused the Senate. Senator James A. Reed of Missouri, bitterest of the irreconcilables, exclaimed:

"We are now to be asked to sit down outside of the League and confer with the gentlemen inside of the League with reference to whether we will accept the jurisdiction of the Court created, set, managed and controlled by the gentlemen inside of the League.

"We ratified the protocol on the assumption it was divorced from the League, but the fact that the League is now inviting us to discuss the reservations, proves this Court never was anything but a League of Nations Court.

"What man is there so blinded by prejudice as not to find in the developments of the past few days an absolute demonstration of the falsity of the claims hitherto advanced by the League and for the League's Court?"

Senator Borah, another irreconcilable, spoke more temperately, but none the less clearly showing his attitude:

"When the Senate voted to adhere to the World Court, which is the League of Nation's Court, it became apparent that the United States would have to sit with the League of Nations.

"If this Government is to be consistent, I see no alternative but for the President to send a representative of the United States to the projected meeting at Geneva."

The State Department tried to extract the terror from the still unrealized invitation by explaining that undoubtedly the League was merely summoning a meeting of the members of the Court to consider the U. S. reservations, and that there was nothing in such an act which would prevent the U. S. from getting agreement to its reservations individually by note from the Court members.

But there was great political trepidation both in the Senate and out, for it was realized that any action, no matter how trivial, by the League would arouse the irreconcilables to new efforts, give them something new to talk about, and possibly imperil the election of pro-Court Senators next fall.