Treaty Tussles

The White House and the Senate continued to tussle last week over confidential papers relative to the negotiation of the London Naval Treaty. Secretary of State Stimson, on President Hoover's order, continued to withhold the documents from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the ground that their publication might embarrass foreign governments (TIME. June 16).

At the Capitol, reports spread that Senator Reed, a delegate to the London Conference who had seen the secret papers, had said their production would help the Treaty but would also stir up "personal animosities and ill-will." This led to a generally accepted Senate surmise that in the documents exchanged between President Hoover and Premier MacDonald, the President had remarked with cutting candor upon the personal and political peculiarities of the very people now opposing the Treaty, had discussed Admirals and Senators and Big-Navy propagandists in terms so frank as to stir up a hornet's nest if now made public. Conceivably the President might have analyzed in uncomplimentary fashion the attitude of the Navy's General Board on cruiser limitation or the anti-Japanese bugaboo of Senator Hiram Johnson of California, chief Senate opponent of the Treaty. Conceivably Mr. MacDonald might have expressed sympathy with Mr. Hoover's difficulties.

"Full & Free Access." Instructed by Secretary Stimson to judge the "Treaty from the language of the document itself and not from extraneous matter"; the Senate Foreign Relations Committee adopted (10-to-7) a resolution asserting "its right to have full and free access" to all Treaty data. When Secretary Stimson was served with a copy of this resolution, he hurried to the White House, conferred long with President Hoover. "Impeachment." At the Capitol Senator Borah, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, explaining the resolution to newsmen, admitted that the President could not be forced to give up the papers, declared with a smile: "There would be no remedy except through impeachment -- and that's too slow." Broadcast Blast. Secretary Stimson went to a radio microphone and appealed to the country over the Senate's head for Treaty support. In a long address in which he went back to Charles I of England to review naval limitation, he blasted away at persons in and out of the Senate who dare to speak against the pact. Excerpts : "Opposition comes mainly from some extremists among professional warriors. . . . The critics are naval officers -- fighting men. They are handicapped by a kind of training which tends to make men think of war as the only possible defense against war. . . . They are naturally against any naval limitation. ... I have no intention of including all naval men in this criticism. . . . Admiral [William Veazie] Pratt's statement in favor of the Treaty was conspicuous for its statesman-like analysis and fair appraisal of the problem. . . . The professional military viewpoint . . . is narrow . . . only covers a portion of the field. . . . Never was the narrowness and intolerance of militarism exhibited in more striking light. . . .

". . . If the ratification of the Treaty should be postponed . . . there will be projected into every Senatorial contest the bitter efforts of a single group of newspapers [Hearst] which is now devoting itself to the defeat of the Treaty. . . . The irresponsible misrepresentation, the spirit of international suspicion and ill-will, which thus far has marked the editorials of this group would be poured into every canvass. . . . This could have no other result than to breed unfounded suspicion and ill-will. It would not only tend to drag the Treaty into party politics, but it would go far to neutralize the efforts which our Government has made ... to cultivate friendship and goodwill." ..." Secretary Stimson acknowledged the resolution from the Foreign Relations Committee in a note to Senator Borah in which he compared the Treaty to any legal contract and added: "I did not attempt to define the duties of the Senate or the scope of its powers in passing upon treaties." "I'm Delighted." Though Secretary Stimson made no move to give up the secret papers, Senator Johnson triumphantly exclaimed , "Obviously the learned Secretary of State was unfortunate in his expressions. . . . While his explanation may not be as clear and as bright as the noonday sun, I'm delighted that the declaration of policy enunciated by the Foreign Relations Committee is neither controverted nor denied. We may accept now as settled the rights of the Senate. . . ." "Not One Scintilla" But President Hoover did not feel that everything was 'settled" He threw himself into the fray with the words: "The real issue in the Treaty is whether we shall stop competitive naval building . . . whether we shall spend an enormous sum in such a race . . and whether the present agreement gives us a substantial parity and proportionate strength. . . .

". . . Our cruiser program increases from 300,000 tons to 320,000 tons. The point at issue in the cruiser program is whether or not we should have 30,000 tons more of cruisers with 8-inch guns advocated by the Navy Board, or 38,500 tons with 6-inch guns provided by this treaty. . . .

"There is not one scintilla of agreement or obligation of any character outside the treaty itself."

Point of Argument. A focus of Treaty argument more popular and pointed than the secret document argument between Senate and Administration continued last week to be the 18 big (10,000-ton) cruisers allowed the U. S. by the Treaty and Britain's insistence upon that limitation. The Navy's General Board, as a maximum concession, agreed last year to a reduction from 23, the number authorized by Congress, to 21 for the purposes of the London Conference. Admiral Pratt, when chosen to be chief U. S. naval adviser at London, protested against any cut of the General Board's figure, but had to accept the 18-cruiser limit. Secretary of the Navy Adams, a Conference delegate, last month told the Senate Naval Affairs Committee that he had held out for 21 cruisers until Britain threatened to crash the conference unless the U. S. compromised on 18 (TIME, May 26). The question: If the difference between 21 and 18 U. S. cruisers was so important to Britain, why were not those three ships just as essential to the U. S.?

The explanation of Britain's insistence upon limiting U. S. cruisers to 18 at the risk of disrupting the parley was as follows: If the U. S. had 21 cruisers, Japan insisted upon upping its big-cruiser strength proportionately. That prospect frightened the British Dominions, particularly Australia and New Zealand, which live in chronic dread of Japanese aggression. They informed the home government that unless Japanese cruiser strength was held down as a consequence of U. S. limitation at 18, they would build big cruisers on their own authority and thus disrupt any prospect of parity and limitation. Britain, caught in an impasse, sided with her Dominions by insisting U. S. cruisers be limited to 18 in order to hold the Japanese fleet down to 12.

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