MARNM BLAB i AMERiCANS ARE I AfREEPEOPLE Speech to Indiana Deiegation Repubiican Nominee Decia^s for Security at Home. EUROPE HAS EVEN NOW QU!T WILSON'S LEAGUE Vet Democratic Party Leaders Would Have Us Bound by Originai Pact . With No American Safeguards. "STEADY AhtERiCA!* "Mindfu! of our splendid ex ampte and renewing every obii gation of association in war, i want America to be the fock of security at home, resoiute in righteousness and tmatterabie in security and supremacy of the !aw. "Let us be done with wiggting and wobbiing. "Steady America! Let us as sure good fortune to at!." —Senator Warren G. Harding in address before the Indiana deiegation at Marion. Marion, O. (Speciai.)—Senator War- i Ten G. Harding, Republican nominee tor President, in a speech deiivered to n delegation from Indiana which cailed on him here to pledge the support of Indiana Republicans, declared that twice President Wilson had an oppor tunity to obtain ratification of the League of Nations covenant and that -&e put ratification aside because he xvouid not accept reservations designed =so)eiy to safeguard American rights. Senator Harding said: "I greet you in a spirit of rejoicing; j not a rejoicing in the narrow persona! w partisan sense, not in the gratifying j prospects of party triumph; not in the vontempiation of abundance in the harvest Reids ^nd ripening corn Reids =and maturing orchards; not in the re assuring approach of stability after a period of wiggiing and wobbiing which tnagniRed our uncertainty—though ai) *of these are "mpie for our wide re joicing—but I rejoice that America is igtiii free and independent and in a po sition of seif-reiiance and hoids to the Tight of seif-determination, which are priceless' possessions in the present Turbulence of the worid. "Let us suppose the senate had rat iCed the peace treaty.containing the* league covenant as submitted to it by The president in Juiy of iast year, \vhat would be the situation confront ing our common country today? To Sny mind there is but one answer. Be !ore this day we wouid have been Tailed* upon to fuiRi the obiigations Which we bad assumed under Article K) of the league covenant, to preserve the territorial integrity of Poland 'as Against external aggression/ i Sympathy for Poiand. ' "I shall not low attempt to meas ure the boundless sympathy for the just aspirations and restored independ ence of Poiand. Our present concern Is the international situation which Poland has brought to our attention, t "The council of the League of Na tions would have reasoned, and rea soned correctly, that the United States could furnish the munitions and, if necessary, the men to withstand the hordes advancing from Russia far tnore easily than could the exhausted nations of Europe. Moreover, inas much as this would be the Rrst test of the scheme of world government Which was formulated and demanded by the President, speaking for the United States, the fact of a speciai responsibility, resting upon our shouid ers. manifestly wouid have been un deniable. Undoubtedly the- league council, in 'advising upon the means' by which the obligations to Poland should be fulfilled, as provided in the covenant, would have so held, and probably the conscience of America, certainty the opinion of the world, Would have sustained that judgment. "The conclusion that our country might now be confronted by such a situation, if the senate had ratfBed the lecgue covenant, requires no stretch of the Imagination. None can deny that !t Is possible. To many candid minds, as to tpy own, such a distressing situation wili seem high ly probable. Let ns assume that the ratiRcation had taken place. Let us assume, further, that the performance iof the alloted task required the wag ing of war upon the Russian people, ^ as of course, it would, what would result * whaf would of necessity have to result' Nothing necessarily, we are glibly informed since only the Congress npp declare war. and the Congre*"- might **o1ef the appeaJ of . the executive But would the Congress do that? Could +he Congress do that 'wlihout staining^ indelibly the honor of the nation? Answer is "No." "I answer 'No,' and I say it not on my own authority alone. Back of my judgment stands the President of the United States. Upon that point there is Rrst-hand information. In the course of the discussion which took piace at the meeting of the President and the Senate Committee on Foreign Re!a tions I raised the question by stating a hypotheticai case preciseiy analogous to that *:.hich I have depicted, and then inquired whether we might not right tctiy be regard**! as a perRdious pe* pie if we should fad to contribute an armed force, if eaiied upon to do so. The President 6rst repiied, as I thought somewhat evasively, that we 'wouid he our own judges as to wheth er we were ohiiged in those circum stances to act in that way or not Pressed further, however, in response to a query incorporating the assump tion that 'the case provided fqy and j prescribed had arisen' and that the ] extraneous attack did exist precisely ! as it does exist today in Poiand,' the President admitted specficaily that 'we j wouid be untrue if we did not keep our ; word.' "Replying further to a question which perhaps 1 ought not to have considered necessary, the President pronounced a morai obiigation 'of course, superior to a lega! obiigation' and of 'a greater binding force.' "What, then, becomes of the argu ment that Congress, not the President, in this instance at any rate, might keep us out of war?' Technicaiiy, of course, it couid do so. Moraily. with equai certainty, it coutd not do so nor would It ever do so. The American peopte would never permit a repudia tion of a debt of honor. "Am I not right, my countrymen, in saying that we needed only the outbreak of war between Potand and Russia to make us readze at ieast one of the things which in the words of Secretary ! atidunpaniottahieiiitei. Toattrihutf meanness to titose of us wim. in rh< performance of out ptthiic duty, re fused to imrticipateittwita: we sits cereiy reganied as a hetrayai of out own country in tite interest of others is to discredit t!:e inteiiigeace :.tni discrimination of the great massot American peepie who directly, h\ their votes, put us m our positions ot trust ^ornyseif.iyieid tone man in wii.ingttes.t. aye. in cagerttcss. tt render the greatest conceivabte assist :nce to the stricket, pet p es (tt ;1 rope. ! inciutie ah of tnom mu streak with a genuioeiv s mt -tttci:' hettrt, whetiterit sietixotionco vastatedFrance, oi $orei\-tr'oot.n!\