The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-09-03
IN SIMPLE STATEMENT OF FACTS, WILSON ANSWERS
 CRITICS IN ACCEPTANCE

prises which it is its evident and inevt-
 able destiny to undertake and carry l through The breaking up of the lobby must especially disconcert them: for 1t | was through the lobby that they sought
 and were sure they had found the heart | of things. The game of privilege can 1 be played successfully by no other means. | This record must equally astonish those who feared that the democratic party had
 not opened it's heart to comprehend the demands of social justice. We have in | four years come very near to carrying out the platform of the progressive party as well as our own; for we also are progressives.
 There is one circumstance connected with this programme which ought to be very plainly stated. It was resisted at every step by the interests which the republican party had catered, to and fostered at the expense of the country. and these same interests are now earnestly praying for reaction which might save their privileges-for the restoration of their sworn friends to power before it is too late to re- cover what they have lost. They fought with particular desperation and infinite resourcefulness the reform of the banking and currency system, knowing that to be the citadel of their control; and most anXiously are they hoping and planning for the amend ment of the federal reserve act by the concentration of control in a single bank which the old familiar group of bankers can keep under their eye and direction. But while the "big men" who used to write the tariffs and command 1 the assistance of the treasury have been hostile-all but few with vision the average business man knows that he has been delivered, and that the fear that was once every day in his heart, that the men who controlled credit and directed enterprise from the committee rooms of Congress would crush him, is there no more, and will not return-unless the party that con- suited only the "big men" should re- turn to power--the party of masterly inactivity and cunning resourcefulness in standing pat to resist change. CANNOT MEET CONDITIONS The republican party Is just the party that cannot meet the new con Giticns of a new age. It does not know the way and it does not wish new con- ditions. It tried to break away from the old leaders and could not. They still select it's candidates and dictate it's policy, still resist change, still banker after the ,ld conditions, still know no methods of encouraging busi- ness but the old methods. When it changes it's leaders and it's purposes and brings it's ideas up to date it will have the right to ask the American people to give it power again. but not until then. new age, an age of revo- lutionary change, needs new purposes and new ideas.
 In foreign affairs we have been guided by principles clearly conceived and consistently lived up to. Perhaps they have not been fully comprehended because they have hitherto governed international affairs only in theory, not in practice. They are simple, ob- vious, easily stated, and fundamental to American ideals.
 ARE NEUTRAL
 We have been neutral not only be- cause it was the fixed and traditional policy of the United States to stand aloof from the politics of Europe and because we had had no part either or action or of policy in the influences which brought on the present war; but also because it was manifestly our duty to prevent if 1t were passlble, the indefinite extension of the fires of hate and desolation kindled by that terrible conflict and seek to serve mankind by reserving our strength and our resources for the anxious and diff f1cult days of restoration and healing which must follow, when peace will have to build its house anew.
 The rights of our own citizens of course became involved: that was inevitable. Where they did this was our guiding principle: that property rights can he vindcated by claims for damages. and no modern nation can decline to arbitrate such claims; but the fundamental rights of humanity cannot be. The loss of life is irreparable. Neither can direct viola tions of nations sovereignty await vim dication in suits for damages. The na- ton that violates these essential rights must expect to be checked and called to account by direct challenge and resist apce. It at once makes the quarrel in part our own. These are plain principles and we have never lost sight of them or departed from them, whatever the stress or the perplexity of circumstance or the provocation to hasty resentment. The record is clear and consistent throughout and stands distinct and ded- mite for anyone to judge who wishes to know the truth about it.
 INTRIGUES OF FOREIGNERS
 The seas were not broad enough to keep the infection of the conflict out of our own politics. The pass~ons and intrigues of certain active groups and combina- tions of men amongst us who were born under foreign flags injected the poison of disloyalty into our own most critical af- fairs, laid violent hanks upon many of our industries, and subjected us to the shame of divisions of sentiment and pur- pose in which America was condemned and forgotten. It is part of the business of this year of reckoning and settlement to speak plainly and act with unmistak- able purpose in rebuke of these things, in order that they may be forever here after impossible. I am the candidate of a party, but I am above all things else an American citizen I neither seek the favor nor fear the dispeasure of that small alien element amongst us which puts loyalty to any foreign power before loyalty to the United States.
 MEXICAN POLICY
 While Europe was at war our own con tinent one of our own neighbors, was shaken by revolution. In that matter, too, principle was plain and it was impera- tive that we should live up to it if we were to deserve the trust of any real partisan of the right as free men see 1t. We have professed to believe. and we do blieve, that the people of small and weak states have the right to expect to be dealt with exactly as the people of big and powerful states would be. We have acted upon that principle in dealing with the