Questions Begging.

The President has submitted the Treaty of Moscow with a “strong recommendation” that the Senate give its advice and consent to ratification. Though the Senate alone will make the formal decision, the debate is of course not confined to the Senate chamber and committee rooms; and I rather think that what goes on there is in this case of less importance than the wider discussion in the nation at large. As matters now stand in the Senate, the required majority will be forthcoming. Well over a third of the Senate, quite possibly a majority, does not really favor the treaty. Some senators will call critical witnesses and speak at length on the treaty’s defects and dangers. In this way they will ease their consciences and make a record that they will try to fall back on when the Treaty of Moscow goes the way of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam. But in the showdown, most of them will vote Aye. They are, or feel themselves to be, in too sticky a bind.

Burnham

JB

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James Burnham

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The President has submitted the Treaty of Moscow with a “strong recommendation” that the Senate give its advice and consent to ratification. Though the Senate alone will make the formal decision, the debate is of course not confined to the Senate chamber and committee rooms; and I rather think that what goes on there is in this case of less importance than the wider discussion in the nation at large. As matters now stand in the Senate, the required majority will be forthcoming. Well over a third of the Senate, quite possibly a majority, does not really favor the treaty. Some senators will call critical witnesses and speak at length on the treaty’s defects and dangers. In this way they will ease their consciences and make a record that they will try to fall back on when the Treaty of Moscow goes the way of Teheran, Yalta and Potsdam. But in the showdown, most of them will vote Aye. They are, or feel themselves to be, in too sticky a bind.

Burnham