Treaty Ratified

After two weeks of weary debate the Senate last week ratified (58 to 9) the London Naval Treaty. The nine dissenters were: Republicans Bingham, Hale, Johnson, Moses, Oddie, Pine, Robinson of Indiana; Democrats McKellar, Walsh of Massachusetts. Even they were glad to adjourn and go home. All relevant and many irrelevant arguments had been exhausted. The opposition had blown itself out in a futile filibuster; a quorum and more had stood fast, literally under the guns of miniature cruiser batteries set up in a corner of the Senate chamber by Senator Hale of Maine to illustrate his objections to the Treaty. Sixteen reservations had been stacked on the rostrum only to be toppled off one by one into the trashbasket and defeat by a long-suffering Senate majority. Only the Norris reservation stipulating that no secret agreements lurked behind the Treaty itself appeared likely to be tacked on to the instrument--and then only if stripped of its "offensive" preamble which recited President Hoover's refusal to deliver to the Senate confidential documents relative to the Treaty's negotiation.

Beaten at every turn, Senator Hiram Johnson, No. 1 Treaty opponent, refused to surrender. He saw his little band of followers subside in silent discouragement. His own voice went hoarse with overtalk-ing, but he lost none of his valor. Cried he: "I ask no quarter. I know no way to fight for my country except to die for it. ... I will present, god willing, as long as I am able, the inequities and iniquities of this Treaty. I'm going to bat just as hard as I can. Go on with your majority! Put on your cloture! I make no agreements! I will go on as best I can and when God no longer permits me to stand upon my feet, I will take my medicine. Go on and stifle and gag!"

To be gagged was exactly what Senator Johnson and his followers most wanted from the majority. Republican Leader Watson had in his desk a petition signed by 35 Senators to invoke cloture and thus kill the filibuster. But Senator Watson was too good a tactician to martyrize Senator Johnson and friends with this ex-treme parliamentary measure. The mere threat served him better.

Chief reservationists were Senators Johnson, Hale, McKellar. Among other things they proposed that: 1) Britain give up her naval bases at Halifax and Bermuda; 2) U. S. entry into the World Court or League of Nations would void the Treaty; 3) All parties to the Treaty guarantee "Freedom of the Seas" to belligerents as well as neutrals in time of war; 4) The division of cruisers into gun categories is only a "temporary expedient" which would not bind the U. S. at future conferences; 5) The 10-6 naval ratio between the U. S. and Japan should be restored and perpetuated; 6) New building under the "escalator" clause would not be confined to a duplication of another power's ships; 7) Violation by any power of the Kellogg-Briand Peace Treaty would void the Naval Treaty and subject the violator to a billion-dollar fine.

More significant than any reservation was a resolution offered by Senator David Ignatius Walsh of Massachusetts who proposed that before the Senate ratify the Treaty, it go on record as favoring the construction of U. S. cruisers up to the full tonnage limit allowed by the pact. What prompted this move was the intimation by President Hoover and Secretary of the Navy Adams that, with the Treaty ratified, the U. S. need not hurry to build up to parity.

Senator Moses' attack was as much upon President Hoover and Secretary Stimson for withholding secret data as it was upon the Treaty. He insisted that President Coolidge would never have consented to accept such a Treaty. Mrs. Stimson in the gallery heard the Senator say:

"The Secretary of State, with a superciliousness much more befitting Stanmore [The Stimson abode outside London during the conference] than Woodley [The Stimson home in Washington] informed the Committee on Foreign relations that it is the Senate's duty to look upon the Treaty in its four corners and take it or leave it, while the President declares we must not affront representatives of other countries. I cannot but feel that he and his Secretary of State have seriously affronted representatives of the American people in the Senate ... I am seeking to express my resentment at forcible feeding in the dark."

The Treaty debate degenerated largely into empty talk by the opposition to kill time. They droned through volumes of Congressional testimony by naval witnesses, read and reread President Coolidge's 1928 Armistice Day speech, intoned interminable passages from books. When Senator Copeland of New York arose to speak, Republican Leader Watson sidled up to him. The following whispered conversation followed:

Watson: What are you going to speak about?

Copeland: Nothing.

Watson: Why waste time?

Copeland: Because Senator Johnson told me to.

Watson: That's filibustering. We'd be justified in invoking the cloture.

Copeland: Now look here, Jim, don't take me too seriously. Pass the word around I won't yield for a quorum call and everyone can go out and play golf without worrying.

When, later, Senator Reed Smoot politely suggested to Senator Johnson that he and his forces were filibustering, Senator Johnson roared out a vehement denial: "Senators sit here gagged and bound without intelligence to discuss this Treaty and yet they dare to say to us who are discussing it that we're wasting time. They're not fit to sit in the Senate!"

One twelve-hour session so frazzled the opposition that the next day they permitted the actual reading of the Treaty by a Senate clerk to commence. Senator Borah as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee introduced the one-sentence resolution, the adoption of which meant that the Senate "advised and consented" to ratification.

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