"From that time the processes have been interesting. Political
expediency in its truest sense dwarfed every consideration
either of the public interest or of the maintenance of the honor
of a great political party. The exclusive question was how to
avoid a rupture in the Republican organization. The country
received with interest, to say the least, the announcement from
Chicago, where the national convention was assembled, that a
platform plank dealing with the subject of world peace, had been
drawn leaving out the Lodge reservations, and yet remaining
agreeable to all interests, meaning thereby, the Lodge
reservationists, the mild reservationists and the group of
Republican senators that openly opposed the League of Nations in
any form.
"As the platform made no definite committal of policy and was,
in fact, so artfully phrased as to make almost any deduction
possible, it passed through the convention with practical
unanimity. Senator Johnson, however, whose position has been
consistent and whose opposition to the League in any shape is
well known, withheld his support of the convention's choice
until the candidate had stated the meaning of the platform, and
announced definitely the policy that would be his, if elected.
"The Republican candidate has spoken and his utterance calls
forth the following approval from Senator Johnson:
"'Yesterday in his speech of acceptance Senator Harding
unequivocally took his stand upon the paramount issue in this
campaign--the League of Nations.
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