The Progressive Democracy of James M. Cox | Page 9

Cox had the faith that "this peace brings the dawn
of a new day of consecration," and in his official proclamation he said:
"A world is reborn. Our Nation has brought success to a righteous

cause. Our State has given with full heart to the achievement of the
glorious end."
In an address in Toronto, Canada, November, 1918, Governor Cox said:
"We consign to posterity an example and inspiration and idealism as
lofty as ever stirred the hearts of men. And then, turning away from the
past, we face the sunrise of to-morrow with faith and resolution to
make a better world than that of yesterday, and to demonstrate that our
heroic defenders have not died in vain. These are dangerous times to
permit the inventive genius of man to go unchecked in matters of
armament. The unspeakable horrors of the war just ended make us
instinctively turn our faces away from the possibility of a half-century
from now, if our thought is to be turned intensively to the production of
things destructive to home life. With the sea fairly alive with
submarines, the air filled with squadrons of flying machines, and the
mysteries of nature unfolding before the sustained labor of
chemists--cities and states and nations could be quickly depopulated.
The Prussian conspiracy would not have been possible if the
international affairs of the earth had been assigned to a League of
Nations. The play may seem to be altruistic, if not fantastic, but the
skeptic is moved by the idea that nations cannot forget selfishness. If
that be true, then the world lacks the fundamental fibers of character to
build an enduring civilization."
In welcoming the returned soldiers of the 166th Infantry in New York
in may, 1919, Governor Cox said: "If peace is to endure, it must be by
means of institutions of government whose strength in the right must
inspire public confidence. We solemnly give the pledge of our state that
the faith will be kept."
Economic effects of the defeat of the Treaty of Peace were discussed
by Governor Cox at Henderson, Kentucky, in April, 1920. He said:
"Some of you may not know the effect of the defeat of the Treaty.
While at Mayfield (Ky.) I saw an old farmer who told me he was
offered twenty and ten dollars for his tobacco before Christmas, but
was forced to sell at six and three dollars. The tumbling of the foreign
exchange and the inability of Italy and other Continental European

countries to purchase their tobacco is the cause of Western Kentucky
farmers losing millions of dollars. This resulted from the Republican
Senate's refusal to ratify the peace treaty. While the Republican
dictators of the Senate set the stage for political triumph, they do not
care how much tobacco growers or the people at large suffer.
Turning to the patriotic issue of the present campaign, he said at the
same time: "It will be with infinite pleasure that we shall ask the
Republican spellbinders if they have kept the faith with the boys who
sleep overseas."
During all the progress of the early part of the campaign the Governor
denounced those who "are seeking to set up racial lines and create a
prejudice among the foreign elements in our midst." He said: "While
other powers are doing everything possible to hold the loose ends of
civilization together, these leaders are deliberately conspiring to
mislead the great bulk of Americans with assertions that are, when
analyzed, nothing more than demagoguery of the crudest kind." Earlier
in the year, in speaking before the Jefferson Club of Marion, Indiana,
the Governor said: "The plot to multiply the woes of mankind, in order
that confusion multiplied might be charged to President Wilson's
insistence on principle and international good faith, is now passing
through the process of public thought, and we have confidence in an
intelligent verdict. The winning of the war, in less time than the
formalizing of peace carries a contrast that needs no comment."
During the period for the selection of delegates to the Democratic
Convention at San Francisco, Governor Cox gave a signed interview to
the New York Times, in which he reviewed the controversy concerning
the League of Nations and outlined two reservations which he believed
would satisfy every reasonable objection. In part, he said:
"If public opinion in the country is the same as it is in Ohio, then there
can be no doubt but that the people want a League of Nations because it
seems to offer the surest guarantee against war. I am convinced that the
San Francisco Convention will endorse in its vital principles the
League adopted at Versailles.

"There can be no doubt but that some senators have been conscientious
in their desire to clarify the provisions of the treaty. Two things
apparently