Evening Star
- U. S. HELD UNLIKELY TO ACT ON COURT
- 100 SHOTS GO WILD AS 500 KLANSMEN AND FOES BATTLE
- SECRET DIPLOMACY REVIVED AT ITALIAN YACHT CONFERENCE
The Evening Star's front page for October 2, 1926 set Washington's stalled World Court debate beside violence at home and intrigue in Europe. David Lawrence reported that President Coolidge treated the Geneva powers' response to the Senate's reservations as a rejection and would informally ask senators what they wished to change; Lawrence wrote that it was a foregone conclusion they would refuse to reopen the question. An Associated Press dispatch from Groton, Massachusetts, described about 100 anti-Klan attackers in automobiles barricading a road with felled trees and firing on some 400 Klansmen at a field meeting; more than 100 shots were fired but no casualties were reported. John Gunther, cabling from London, gave the official British account of the Chamberlain–Mussolini meeting aboard a yacht at Leghorn, then relayed observers' belief that it marked a return of secret diplomacy and balance-of-power politics answering the Franco-German rapprochement.
Translation
U. S. HELD UNLIKELY TO ACT ON COURT
…live polar bears lassoed by Carl Dunrud, a Montana cowpuncher, from an iceberg. It brought a cargo of walrus, narwhal and other Arctic specimens, all of which will be mounted for the museum.
U. S. HELD UNLIKELY TO ACT ON COURT
Next Move Believed Up to Powers Which Acted on U. S. Reservations.
BY DAVID LAWRENCE.
The next move in the World Court controversy is up to the powers who assembled at Geneva recently and rejected the American reservations which had been adopted by the United States Senate.
The word "rejected" is used advisedly. For President Coolidge regards the action of the foreign governments as a rejection of the American proposal. This was officially disclosed at the White House.
The President also feels that the proposal which the foreign governments rejected was the Senate's own proposal and that, therefore, he must ask the Senate what it desires to change in the wording of the proposal to conform to the ideas of the foreign governments. He proposes to do the asking in informal fashion rather than by formal message, so there will be no time lost in extended debate.
It is a foregone conclusion what Senators of both political parties will tell him—namely, that it is useless to reopen the question and permit the "irreconcilables" to talk it to death and destroy chances of having other important legislation acted on at the coming short session of Congress.
Confers With Swanson.
Senator Swanson, Democratic leader, who handled the fight for the World Court, was the first consulted by President Coolidge. Mr. Swanson had been in Geneva at the time the American reservations were under consideration, so knows the viewpoint of foreign governments.
Possibly they thought the American Senate would be conciliatory and would accept the interpretation placed on the famous fifth reservation. They will shortly be advised that it would be difficult to get two-thirds of the Senate to accept the new interpretation. So if the rest of the world wants the United States in the World Court, the language of the diplomatic note to be addressed to the United States soon by other governments must be changed. There still is time to do it, for the final diplomatic exchanges have not been carried out.
The views of the United States will be told informally to some of the American Ambassadors and Ministers abroad by the Department of State if the President can obtain a consensus of the Senate in time to do so.
Fear Opposition Over Pride.
100 SHOTS GO WILD AS 500 KLANSMEN AND FOES BATTLE
WASHINGTON, D.
100 SHOTS GO WILD AS 500 KLANSMEN AND FOES BATTLE
Revolvers and Rifles Crack at Pitched Fight in Massachusetts.
KNIGHTS BLOCKED OFF BY TREES ACROSS ROAD
Cars Forced Through Fields Under Fire—Grounds Littered With Glass.
By the Associated Press.
GROTON, Mass., October 2.—A revolver and rifle battle between Klan and anti-Klan forces numbering more than 500 persons, in which more than 100 shots were fired shortly after last midnight, was under investigation today by town and State police. No casualties were reported.
The disturbance was the latest of a long series, which have occurred in various parts of the State in the past two years.
A field littered with the remains of splintered windshields was all that remained when town and State police arrived in response to calls of alarmed residents of the vicinity.
An attacking party of 100 persons in automobiles surprised 400 Klansmen meeting in a field off a side road, and after felling trees to barricade either end of the highway by the field, they opened fire, according to the police.
Klansmen scurried to their machines, meanwhile returning the fire, and sped through the fields seeking to gain the road without passing the trees, behind which the attacking party had taken a stand.
RETIRED CLERKS CONSIDER PROTEST
SECRET DIPLOMACY REVIVED AT ITALIAN YACHT CONFERENCE
…esterday's Circulation, 99,780. Associated Press. TWO CENTS.
SECRET DIPLOMACY REVIVED AT ITALIAN YACHT CONFERENCE
Chamberlain and Mussolini Believed to Have Deeper Motives Than Are Revealed.
PROMOTION OF LOCARNO SPIRIT, OFFICIAL VIEW
New Balance of Power Grouping Is Possible Result, in Private Analysis.
BY JOHN GUNTHER.
By Cable to The Star and Chicago Daily News.
LONDON, October 2.—What happened at the mysterious conference between Foreign Minister Chamberlain and Premier Mussolini is as follows, according to reliable information received by the correspondent:
First. Mr. Chamberlain presented the British viewpoint that the stability of Europe, now predicated upon the Locarno treaties, must in time be reinforced by individual "understandings" with various countries concerned.
Second, that in view of the celebrated luncheon at Thiory between Foreign Ministers Briand and Stresemann, culminating in the declaration of a Franco-German entente, "no harm" would result from similar quasi-secret conversations between the spokesmen of Great Britain and Italy.
General Accord Desired.
Third, that such conversation should aim not at grouping pairs of powers as possible rivals, but rather at combining all in some sort of pan-European accord, further emphasizing the Locarno attitude.
Whether Premier Mussolini went beyond cordial sympathy with these proposals is not known.
So much for the cautious exposition of the British attitude, as it came to the writer on high authority.
Most observers feel that something deeper occurred in quite a different direction. Every one knows what happened in January as a result of the private hour between Messrs. Chamberlain and Mussolini at Rapallo. It has been assumed in the light of subsequent events that Great Britain [?] to wink if Italy should move into Asia Minor against Turkey—with the result that Turkey surrendered on the Mosul question before Italy's bluff. The agreement between Great Britain and Italy over Abyssinia followed soon after.
Deeper Issues Discovered.
It is in the mind of many observers that it is quite within the range of possibilities that some similar discussion over some phase of international relations took place on the pretty yacht Giuliana at Leghorn.
Put brusquely, it is the feeling that Great Britain and Italy may have paved the way for an "understanding," in case any such understanding ever is necessary to balance the Franco-German understanding.
In other words, many observers believe that Leghorn has come as a logical successor to Thiory. The age of secret private conferences has come again to Europe. The concept of the balance of power has been revived.
(Copyright, 1926, by Chicago Daily News Co.)
MUSSOLINI URGED TO REST.
Chamberlain Quoted as Advising Italian Premier Thus.
ROME, October 2 (AP).—Sir Austen Chamberlain, foreign secretary for…
Context
Why the Senate's reservations stalled at Geneva
Lawrence's column turns on the "famous fifth reservation," the Senate condition that the powers meeting at Geneva would not accept in the form the Senate had written it. In the standard account of the Permanent Court of International Justice, the United States demanded a veto over cases involving the United States, and the other nations rejected the idea. That explains the bind Lawrence describes. Coolidge could not simply negotiate a compromise with the powers, because any new wording would have to go back to a Senate where, as the column notes, two-thirds would have to agree. Opposition to the court in the Senate was led by William Borah, Republican of Idaho, the court's leading opponent. Lawrence's forecast that nothing would happen soon proved correct. Court protocols were not signed until 9 December 1929, and the resulting treaty failed in the Senate by seven votes on 29 January 1935. The United States never joined the court.
What lay behind two years of Klan clashes in Massachusetts
The AP dispatch calls the Groton gunfight "the latest of a long series" over the previous two years, and the wider record bears out that pattern. Klan meetings and cross-burnings had become fairly regular in small towns across eastern and central Massachusetts in the early 1920s. The revived Klan's message targeted Catholics, Jews and immigrants, and anti-Irish prejudice resurfaced as Irish Americans gained political power in the state. The conflict was openly political. Before the Klan's great Worcester rally in October 1924, the local press reported that Klan speakers planned to attack Senator David I. Walsh after a "Klan affray at Lancaster" that July, and to denounce Boston Mayor James M. Curley for his hostility to the order and his alleged interference with its meetings. That Worcester gathering, the largest Klan meeting ever held in New England, ended around midnight in a riot. Klansmen's cars were stoned and burned, and afterwards Klan membership in the area declined. The Groton ambush, with its barricades and shattered windshields at a meeting in a rural field, fits this pattern, though the details of the clash come only from the police account reported by AP.
Locarno as the backdrop to the Leghorn yacht talks
Gunther's official British line, that Chamberlain wanted to reinforce a European stability "predicated upon the Locarno treaties," rests on the settlement of late 1925. Italy was a party to the main Locarno treaty; Mussolini attended the Locarno conference from time to time while Senator Vittorio Scialoja represented Italy. Chamberlain had received the Nobel Peace Prize for 1925 as one of the treaty's lead negotiators. The yacht meeting came just weeks after the treaties' key condition had been met: Germany was admitted to the League of Nations with a permanent Council seat on 10 September 1926. The article presents the Thoiry luncheon between Briand and Stresemann as the moment the Franco-German understanding became explicit. The observers Gunther quotes read the Leghorn meeting as an Anglo-Italian counterweight to it, a revival of the balance of power in place of the collective "spirit of Locarno." That reading was the observers' interpretation; the British official view, as reported, stressed a general pan-European accord instead.
The Mosul settlement Gunther invoked
Gunther's claim that Turkey "surrendered on the Mosul question before Italy's bluff" refers to a dispute settled a few months before this page appeared. On 5 June 1926 Turkey, the United Kingdom and Mandatory Iraq signed the Treaty of Ankara, which assigned Mosul Province to Iraq. Turkey received 10 percent of the Iraqi government's oil royalties from Mosul for 25 years. The treaty record establishes the outcome, but not the motive Gunther suggests. The idea that Britain had signaled at Rapallo it would tolerate an Italian move into Asia Minor, and that this pressure forced Turkey's hand, is what he says observers had "assumed in the light of subsequent events." The same applies to his linking of the Anglo-Italian understanding on Abyssinia to that meeting. Both claims are best read as contemporary speculation about Britain and Italy trading support around the eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea, not as documented bargains.
Original
U. S. HELD UNLIKELY TO ACT ON COURT
live polar bears lassoed by Carl Dunrud, a Montana cowpuncher, from an iceberg. It brought a cargo of walrus, norwhal and other Arctic specimens, all of which will be mounted for the museum. U. S. HELD UNLIKELY TO ACT ON COURT Next Move Believed Up to Powers Which Acted on U. S. Reservations. BY DAVID LAWRENCE. The next move in the World Court controversy is up to the powers who assembled at Geneva recently and rejected the American reservations which had been adopted by the United States Senate. The word " rejected " is used advisedly. For President Coolidge regards the action of the foreign governments as a rejection of the American proposal. This was officially disclosed at the White House. The President also feels that the proposal which the foreign governments rejected was the Senate's own proposal and that, therefore, he must ask the Senate what it desires to change in the wording of the proposal to conform to the ideas of the foreign governments. He proposes to do the asking in informal fashion rather than by formal message, so there will be no time lost in extended debate. It is a foregone conclusion what Senators of both political parties will tell himnamely, that it is useless to reopen the question and permit the " irreconcilables " to talk it to death and destroy chances of having other important legislation acted on at the coming short session of Congress. Confers With Swanson. Senator Swanson. Democratic leader, who handled the fight for the World Court, was the first consulted by President Coolidge. Mr. Swanson had been in Geneva at the time the American reservations were under consideration, so knows the viewpoint of foreign governments. Possibly they thought the American Senate would be conciliatory and would accept the interpretation placed on the famous fifth reservation. They will shortly be advised that it would be difficult to get two-thirds of the Senate to accept the new interpretation. So if the rest of the world wants the United States in the World Court, the language of the diplomatic note to be addressed to the United States soon by other governments must be changed. There still is time to do it for the final diplomatic exchanges have not been carried out. The views of the United States will be told informally to some of the American Ambassadors and Ministers abroad by the Department of State if the President can obtain a concensus of the Senate in time to do so. Fear Opposition Over Pride.
100 SHOTS GO WILD AS 500 KLANSMEN AND FOES BATTLE
WASHINGTON, D. 100 SHOTS GO WILD AS 500 KLANSMEN AND FOES BATTLE Revolvers and Rifles Crack at Pitched Fight in Massachusetts. KNIGHTS BLOCKED OFF BY TREES ACROSS ROAD Cars Forced Through Fields Under Fire-Grounds Littered With Glass. By the Associated Press. GROTON, Mass., October 2. - A revolver and rifle battle between Klan and anti-Klan forces numbering more than 500 persons, in which more than 100 shots were fired shortly after last midnight, was under investigation today by town and State police. No casualties were reported. The disturbance was the latest of a long series, which have occurred in various parts of the State in the past two years. A field littered with the remains of splintered windshields was all that remained when town and State police arrived in response to calls ' of alarmed residents of the vicinity. An attacking party of 100 persons in automobiles surprised 400 Klansmen meeting in a field off a side road, and after felling trees to barricade either end of the highway by the field, they opened fire, according to the police. Klansmen scurried to their machines, meanwhile returning the fire, and sped through the fields seeking to gain the road without passing the trees, behind which the attacking party had taken a stand. RETIRED CLERKS CONSIDER PROTEST
SECRET DIPLOMACY REVIVED AT ITALIAN YACHT CONFERENCE
esterday's Circulation, 99, 780 Associated Press. TWO CENTS. SECRET DIPLOMACY REVIVED AT ITALIAN YACHT CONFERENCE Chamberlain and Mussolini Believed to Have Deeper Motives Than Are Revealed. PROMOTION OF LOCARNO SPIRIT, OFFICIAL VIEW New Balance of Power Grouping Is Possible Result, in Private Analysis. BY JOHN GUNTHER. By Cable to The Star and Chicago Daily News. LONDON, October 2. - What happened at the mysterious conference between Foreign Minister Chamberlain and Premier Mussolini is as follows, according to reliable information received by the correspondent: First. Mr. Chamberlain presented the British viewpoint that the stability of Europe, now predicated upon the Locarno treaties, must in time be reinforced by individual " understandings " with various countries concerned. Second, that in view of the celebrated luncheon at Thiory between Foreign Ministers Briand and Stresemann, culminating in the declaration of a Franco-German entente, " no harm " would result from similar quasi-secret conversations between the spokesmen of Great Britain and Italy. General Accord Desired. Third, that such conversation should aim not at grouping pairs of powers as possible rivals, but rather at combining all in some sort of panEuropean accord, further emphasizing the Locarno attitude. Whether Premier Mussolini went beyond cordial sympathy with these proposals is not known. So much for the cautious exposition of the British attitude, as it came to the writer on high authority. Most observers feel that something deeper occurred in quite a different direction. Every one knows what happened in January as a result of the private hour between Messrs. Chamberlain and Mussolini at Rapallo. It has been assumed in the light of subsequent events that Great Britain [?] to wink if Italy should move into Asia Minor against Turkey-with the result that Turkey surrendered on the Mosul question before Italy's bluff. The agreement between Great Britain and Italy over Abyssinia followed soon after. Deeper Issues Discovered. It is in the mind of many observers that it is quite within the range of possibilities that some similar discussion over some phase of international relations took place on the pretty yacht Giuliana at Leghorn. Put brusquely, it is the feeling that Great Britain and Italy may have paved the way for an " understanding, " in case any such understanding ever is necessary to balance the Franco-German understanding. In other words, many observers believe that Leghorn has come as a logical successor to Thiory. The age of secret private conferences has come again to Europe. The concept of the balance of power has been revived. (Copyright, 1926, by Chicago Daily News Co.) MUSSOLINI URGED TO REST. Chamberlain Quoted as Advising Italian Premier Thus. ROME, October 2 (AP). - Sir Austen Chamberlain, foreign secretary for
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