"This Great Moment"

He was too ill to attend the Great Debate--which had been neither great nor much of a debate. But from his sickbed 165 miles away in Lynchburg, Va., Elder Statesman Carter Glass, 85, dictated a message to his fellow Senators:

"I stand now where I have always stood, without quibble or equivocation, behind a league of nations with power to prevent war. . . . Along with lovers of peace throughout the world, I hail the result of the Moscow Conference, which, if language means anything, plainly proposes a league to maintain peace after the war. . . . The Senate might well see fit to endorse specifically the language of the Moscow Conference."

It had taken Texas' Long Tom Connally 29 weeks to phrase his 176-word Senate Resolution for international cooperation. For ten days, insisting it should be stronger, the B2H2 Senators had hammered at it.* Then came the Moscow agreement. Both Illinois' Scott Lucas and California's Sheridan Downey had the happy thought: Why not add the words of the pact to the Connally Resolution? Tom Connally was won over; so were the B2H2 supporters. The deadlock was broken.

Another Voice. On the Senate floor, the man who so long has symbolized "America, go it alone," was speaking. The voice was tired because Hiram Johnson is 77, and ailing. But it was tired, too, because the cause was lost, after 25 years,

"All the doctors . . . forbade my indulging in any exercise whatever emotional in character. ... So I wish to explain to the people of this country, and to my fellows here, why I am quiet . . . in this great moment. . . ."

The voice croaked so feebly that only those who bunched up close could hear it:

"God save the United States of America. God give to her all she should have. God preserve her in the days to come. I know what they will bring. I have been through such days. But God be good to us and permit us to resist, and permit us to be the country we have ever been."

The old man sat down again. He knew it was all over. Swiftly the Senate shouted down five delaying amendments. Then the voting began: Should the Senate resolve its willingness to join in establishing international authority to preserve peace?

The final vote: 85 yes, 5 no, with 6 absent. (If all had been present, the final vote would have been 90-to-6.) Against the Resolution: the Midwest's triumvirate of old-style isolationists, Henrik Shipstead of Minnesota, North Dakota's William Langer, Wisconsin's Robert La Follette, North Carolina's Reynolds, Montana's Wheeler (who had supported the League until 1923); and Hiram Johnson.

*Ball, Burton, Hatch, Hill, of Minnesota, Ohio, New Mexico, Alabama, respectively.

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