AMERICAN PROBLEMS by WILLIAM E.BORAH 1924

132 WILLIAM E. BORAH
criticize or assail the individuals who had to
do with its making; it was a treaty born of a
fiendlike struggle and also of the limitations of
human nature. So let its making pass.
But three years have come and gone since the
war, and we have now had time to reflect and
to contemplate the future. We have escaped,
I trust, to some extent the grip of the war passion
and are freer to think of the things which
are to come rather than upon the things which
are past. We have had time not only to read
this treaty and think it over, but we have had
an opportunity to see its effects upon peace
and civiliation. We know what it is now, and
if we recognize it and strengthen it or help to
maintain it, we shall not be able to plead at the
bar of history the extenuating circumstances
which its makers may justly plead. We see
now not alone the punishment it would visit
upon the Central Powers, but we see the cruel
and destructive punishment it has visited and
is to visit upon millions, many of whom fought
by our side in the war. We know it has reduced
to subjection and delivered over to exploitation
subject and friendly peoples; that
it has given in exchange for promises of independence
and freedom dependence and spoliation.
But that is not the worst. "If it were