Arizona sentinel and Yuma weekly examiner., 1914-04-23

When Woodrow Wilson was a can- didate for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency he made speech at the National Press club in Wash ington, on February Il, 1911, on his great hobby of publicity. Among other things he said:
 Really what we are after in the field Of politics is to drive everything into the field of facts, drive every thing into the open. The root of all evil in politics is privacy and conceal ment. After all, when you think of the things of which we have been com blaming, they are summed up in this: that the people do not know and there fore cannot control the processes of their own politics.
 That is the reason why my hobby is the hobby of publicity. I cannot i'm agine anything legitimate that a man is doing that he need be afraid to talk about. I cannot imagine any portion of the public busi- ness which can be privately and confi- dently dealt with"
 When, after a campaign on these lines, Woodrow Wilson had succeeded in obtaining the Democratic nomina- ton for the Presidency, he continued the same kind of talk, enlarging it somewhat with praise of the Democrat ic platfrom and specifically pledgipg himself to be bound by it.
 In a speech before some 2,00O New Jersey farmers at Washington Park on August 5, 1912, he said:
 Our platform is not molasses to catch flies. It means business. It means what it says. It is the utter ance of earnest and honest men who
 intend to do business along those promises before they determine wheth- CT they are going to act upon shem or not"
 What did the Democratic platform say? In its final paragraph, summing ID the argument on which the Demo cratic party appealed to all citizens to support it, it said: ::
 Our platform is one of principles, which we believe to be essential to our national welfare. Our peldges are made to be kept when in office as well as relied upon during the cam paign.'
 One of the pledges made in this platform is as follows:
 "We favor the exemption from tolls of American ships en- gagged in coastwise trade pass ing through the Panama Canal. We also favor legislation forbidding the use of the Panama Canal by ships owned or controlled by rialroad car riers engaged in transportation com petitive with the canal"
 in his speech at Washington Park Mr Wilson, the candidate, endorsed this pledge of the platform, and said:
 You see the object of that don't you? We don want the railroads to with themselves, beciuse we understand that kind of competlrlon We want water carriage to compete with land carriage, so as to be perfect ly sure that you are going to get better rates around the Canal that you would across the continent"
 On pledges like that, Woodrow Will son, the candidate, was elected. But after he had become President some thing happened that changed his views his speech and his action Publicity is no longer MT. Wilson's hobby and he has skilfully and consistently conceal ed what it was that made him change his mind about this pledge in the Democratic platform and his own pledge to maintain that platform. So now he is contending with his own party in Congress for the repeal of the law which would make that platform good. He declares now that he was all wrong in what he said to the New Jersey farmers at Washington Park and that the tolls exemption "consti- tutes mistaken economic policy from every point of view"
 Without the least explaining what has changed his mind or why he now repudiates his personal pledge and his platform, he says:
 We ought to revere our action with out raising the question whether we were right or wrong"
 MT. Wilson now finds a number of matters of the public business with which he insists upon dealing private y and confidently. It would be inter- asting to know whether he is still un- able to imagine anything legitimate that a man is doing that he need be afraid to talk about" But perhaps he does not regard what he is now doing