The broad ax. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1895-19??, 1916-09-16


CATION WHEELS IN LINE FOB
HON. CHARLES e. HUGHES FOB
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES.
The following letter speaks for it.
self:
Clifford Pinchot
Milford Pike Co., Pa.
Philadelphia, Pa,
September z, 1916.
Mr.. Julius F. Taylor,
Editor, The Broad AK,
Chicago, Ill.
Dear Sir:
1t is the duty of every American
citizen to make and support openly his
choice among the candidates for the
Presidency. That duty is especially
solemn this year because great events
and great decisions are certain to con-
front us during the next administra-
ton. am writing to give you my
reasons for my own choice.
1 am neither a Democrat nor a Re-
publican, but Progressive. Yet, there
being no Progressive nominee, unless
L choose to support candidate who
can not be elected, must vote for
either Wilson or Hughes.
For many months after his inaugura-
tion, I thought well of President Will
son. In many respects I liked what
he said about what he was going to do.
He talked well and made a good i'm
preston. 1t was only when I began
to check up what he said by what he
did that I was forced to change my
view.
In the end 1 came to see that Presi-
dent Wilson has a greater power than
any other man in public life to say
one thing but do another, and get away
with it.
The facts which justify this state
ment are common knowledge.
We have all heard him tell Germany
publicly that she would be held to
strict accountability; and have learned
afterward that he had actually let her
know secretly at the time, by the
mouth of his Secretary of State
through the Austrian Ambassador, that
what he said he did not mean. We
have all seen him prove that he did
not mean it by his total failure to
exact reparation, apology, or even dis
avowal for the murder of Americans on
the Lusitania.
L do not say that Wilson should have
thrust US into war. There was no need
of war. But there was need of courage
to give US peace with self-respect. If
Wilson had shown courage this country
would not have skidded from one crisis
to the next, again and again narrowly
disaster.
We have all heard him declare against
intervention in Mexico, while actually
intervening to dictate who should and
who should not hold office there; and de-
nounce war against Mexico while actu-
ally engaged in war.
With war on every side of US, we all
heard him, in his second annual mes
sage, solemnly assure the country that
we had not been negligent of national
defense. 1t was not true; and later on
he himself proved that it was not true
by proclaiming aloud the need for
what he had solemnly assured us we
already had.
For more than a year after the
world-war began, Wilson did not raise
a finger to put US in a condition of de-
tense. Only the proverbial good luck
of America has kept us from paying
the bitterest price for his unforgivable
neglect.
We have all heard him ridicule the
idea of a greater navy, then declare
for incomparably the greatest navy in
the world, and then go back on that.
We have all heard him declare for
exempting our coast-wise trade from
tolls in the Panama Canal; and have
seen him show our own people and the
English that he did not mean it.
We have seen him elected on a plat
form which pledged him to a single
term as President, and then become
a candidate for another term.
We have all heard him declare for
the conservation of our natural re-
sources; and have seen him neglect
that policy, and refuse his help to de-
feat the Shields waterpower bill, the
most dangerous attack on conservation
since Ballinger's effort to turn Alaska
over to the Guggenheims.
We have all heard him declare for
efficiency in Government, and have
seen him set the pork-barrel first and
throw efficiency away. I have known
official Washington from the inside for