The count shows that sixteen
millions voted Republican, and nine millions Democratic. They voted,
says Mr. Harvey, for and against the League of Nations, and in support
of this claim, he can point to Mr. Wilson's request for a referendum,
and to the undeniable fact that the Democratic party and Mr. Cox
insisted that the League was the issue. But then, saying that the
League was the issue did not make the League the issue, and by
counting the votes on election day you do not know the real division
of opinion about the League. There were, for example, nine million
Democrats. Are you entitled to believe that all of them are staunch
supporters of the League? Certainly you are not. For your knowledge of
American politics tells you that many of the millions voted, as they
always do, to maintain the existing social system in the South, and
that whatever their views on the League, they did not vote to express
their views. Those who wanted the League were no doubt pleased that
the Democratic party wanted it too. Those who disliked the League may
have held their noses as they voted. But both groups of Southerners
voted the same ticket.
Were the Republicans more unanimous? Anybody can pick Republican
voters enough out of his circle of friends to cover the whole gamut of
opinion from the irreconcilability of Senators Johnson and Knox to the
advocacy of Secretary Hoover and Chief Justice Taft.
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