The Washington herald., 1914-11-05
The Verdict Of the People.

Aharne with significance and suggestion are
the election results. Primarily and pre-efni-
nently they are protest against radicallsn.
They are alike rebuke to the wildmen OF the
Democratic party, and the extremist among
the disappearing Progressives. They are YER
dict, country y-wide, against radical tariff reduc-
.tion that cuts American industry to the bone.
They are thrust at the head-hunters OF
American enterprise Their demands are many
voiced They speak for sanity and justice IN
Legislation and government. They demand re-
turn to those normal courses in which this in
dustrious and peaceful people shall enjoy fair
measure of their reward, and right. They make
unerringly for the return to power OF re-
habilitated and reunited Republican party.
The voice that spoke on Tuesday was the
voice of the American people, speaking not by
coaching and under the inducement OF political
organization. There was no coaching and little
or no political organization. The Congress
sional campaign committee set up to lead the
fight that has restored the balance in, and to
Congress, did not have carfare. In the midst
of the campaign if could not pay postage on
its political literature Its appeals for contri-
buttons brought pittance. Men who or
dinarily give to the party were bullied by the
false cry that such contributions are dishonest,
and the threat to pillory them, or declined un-
der stress of the enforced economy of the time,.
or looked upon the contest as forlorn. Your
ordinary committeeman would have shut up
shop and gone home Not so with Frank
Woods and his comrades, and all honor to
them.
And there wasn't any issue, leastwise not
one that stood out. Everything, even the war
in Europe, broke for or under the sanctihed
steamroller that got in motion year ago last
March Republicans in Congress voted with
the overwhelming majority, in which merged
Legislative and executive power, born separately
in the Constitution. Republican newspapers
played the popular side, and piped in minor
KEY when they spoke for their seemingly dis
integrated party Opposition leadership was at
skies and sevens Organization was impossible
But without organization, without defined lead
ership, without an issue that showed clear-cut
above the confusion and the hurrah of false
confidence and power insecure, without money
to meet the legitimate needs of party cam
paigning, the people were forming themselves,
forming themselves in companies, battaions,
regiments, brigades, divisions, and corps for
the battle of the ballots. Few politicians saw
or sensed the great silent movement; both sides
are astonished at the Congressional result
Senator Borah foreSaw some of it when he
said year ago that the people would show the
way back President Wilson glimpsed it when
he said it was time for truce with industry
and business. And if the President had put
action behind his clear-sighted conviction the
result might have been less disastrous.
The time is for truce with, and for
all of our people. They have wearied of tur-
moil and futility, wearied of politics that aligns
and embitters the classes and denies oppor-
tunity to both, wearied of minor politics. They
want a tariff not drawn to the political yard
stick, but shaped in broad craftsmanship to
meet the true fiscal and economic needs of this
country, to meet the relentless competition of
other great industrial powers. Down to the
last worker they have felt the effect in pocket
and stomach of an unwise tariff law, which,
with mass of other undigested legislation,
was and is threat to American initiative and
enterprise.
The administration will seek consolation
here and assurance there, but the wise men in
it will read true the story that lies in those
Congressional ballots 1t is a rebuke at the
lood-tide of power and seeming success.
The Presidents personality, his lofty con-
ception of and devotion to the duties of his
Office, though the effort was to make them the
chief issue of the campaign, failed to justify
the record of the past and failed to give suffi-
cient assurance of the future.
Squarely in every Congressional district in
the land went the message, plea and chal-
lenge, that the leader put the policy and the
performance of his party in judgment to the
people. And squarely and firmly has come the
answer.