n of the principle has been
fully demonstrated. Mr. Wilson resurrected "the consent of the governed"
regardless of the fact that history denied its value as a practical
guide in modern political relations. He proclaimed it in the phrase
"self-determination," declaring it to be an "imperative principle of
action." He made it one of the bases of peace. And yet, in the
negotiations at Paris and in the formulation of the foreign policy of
the United States, he has by his acts denied the existence of the right
other than as the expression of a moral precept, as something to be
desired, but generally unattainable in the lives of nations. In the
actual conduct of affairs, in the practical and concrete relations
between individuals and governments, it doubtless exercises and should
exercise a measure of influence, but it is not a controlling influence.

In the Treaty of Versailles with Germany the readjustment of the German
boundaries, by which the sovereignty over millions of persons of German
blood was transferred to the new states of Poland and Czecho-Slovakia,
and the practical cession to the Empire of Japan of the port of
Kiao-Chau and control over the economic life of the Province of Shantung
are striking examples of the abandonment of the principle.

In the Treaty of Saint-Germain the Austrian Tyrol was ceded to the
Kingdom of Italy against the known will of substantially the entire
population of that region.

In both the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Saint-Germain Austria
was denied the right to form a political union with Germany, and when an
article of the German Constitution of August, 1919, contemplating a
"reunion" of "German Austria" with the German Empire was objected to by
the Supreme Council, then in session at Paris, as in contradiction of
the terms of the Treaty with Germany, a protocol was signed on September
22, 1919, by plenipotentiaries of Germany and the five Principal Allied
and Associated Powers, declaring the article in the Constitution null
and void. There could hardly be a more open repudiation of the alleged
right of "self-determination" than this refusal to permit Austria to
unite with Germany however unanimous the wish of the Austrian people for
such union.

But Mr. Wilson even further discredited the phrase by adopting a policy
toward Russia which ignored the principle. The peoples of Esthonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, the Ukraine, Georgia, and Azerbaidjan have by blood,
language, and rac