prevent its acceptance by the upper branch of the American Congress?  I need not recall, because every child knows about it.  But the soldiers came back home; they were demobilized; they entered into their several walks of life believing that their victory had been complete, and that the offending powers had been brought to terms.  And now, with the armies disbanded, and now, with our military strength no longer holding together, it is proposed by the candidate of the Republican party that he will prove false to the boys who stood by when that peace was made.  He will destroy the pact and enter into a new covenant.

“Six hundred thousand French died at Verdun defending the slogan, ‘They shall not pass.’  More than a million English and Canadians died on the Somme, reforming their ranks, and hurling back the challenge, ‘They shall not pass.’  They were possessed of the crusading spirit; they were preserving the Democracy of the world, the very Government of the earth.  And now another menace is threatened, and it is proposed that some one, acting in behalf of two millions of soldiers and the one hundred million people of this Republic, shall perform a perfectly perfidious act.  Standing at the head of the hosts of the great army which opposes the hosts of reaction; standing at the head of the hosts of Democracy, at the head of the hosts of progress; at the head of the hundreds of thousands of independents of this Country, I give to you this assurance:  That this dishonorable deed will not be perpetrated—­for two very important reasons.  First, Warren G. Harding will not have a chance to do it; and second, I will not insult two million soldiers by doing it myself.

“And then proceeding to the second stage of these proceedings, the Republican candidate says that after he shall have made a separate peace with Germany, he will then assemble the conscience of the civilization of the world and form an entirely new relationship.  If, for the sake of argument only, we are to assume that a separate peace with Germany were made, I believe that the Government of the United States of America would be so unworthy in the eyes of the nations of the world that none of them would have anything to do with us at all.

“This one question will remain in the public mind.  After all this is the crux of the whole situation.  The Republican candidate and the reactionaries now in control of the Republican party, promise you nothing whatsoever except a proposal which at is best will involve months and probably years of delay.  On the other hand, we promise you this, that after the 4th of March, 1921, with the least amount of conversation possible, we will enter the League of Nations of the world.  Our Democratic platform adopted at San Francisco gives us full license and opportunity to enter the League upon terms which will need no defense.  Our position is not unbending; it is not captious.  We proclaim that we will accept any conditions that interpret, that call attention to the limitations of our Constitution; that serve full notice now upon the powers of the earth that we can go so far and no further.