Saturday news. (Watertown, S.D.) 19??-19??, 1916-06-15
A WISE CHOICE.

Perhaps no more fitting candidate
for the republican nomination could
have been chosen than Justice Hughes
of New York.
Charles Evans Hughes is too much
of ar idealist to be popular with the
party bosses, and he is too reserved
to be personally popular with the
Toms and the Dicks and the Harries,
but he is a man of great strength as
a candidate, nevertheless.
No one would ever think of ad-
dressing Mr.. Hughes as Teddy" or
of taking other liberties with his
name, and yet as a candidate he will
probably poll more votes throughout
the north h any other man who
could have been named.
But If his ability to poll votes were
all that commends him to the thought
full consideration Of the American
people. it would have been a mistake
TO place him at the head of the great
republican party. The country does
not need a mere vote-getter so much
as it needs a statesman. 1t needs a
man in the White House who meas
nres up to the emergency that con
fronts the American nation.
President Wilson is a good man,
from a personal standpoint. He is a
man of lofty ideals. He believes that
a mar derives his greatest exaltation
as a citizen from the performance of
those duties from day to day which
deyolve upon him as a member of
the great union of families compris-
ing the American republic.
But President Wilson is a school
master rather than a statesman. Gift
ed with a high sense of honor, en-
@dowed with a superb mentality and
possessed of exalted views with re-
'spect to citizenship, he yet fails to
measure up to the requirements of
the hour. His lack of training in
statecraft, his temperamental weak
ness in international affairs, his ten
dency to vacillate, combine to stamp
him as a man of ~mediocrity in affairs
of state.
And yet Mr.. Wilson is not going to
be an easy man for the republicans
to defeat. We opine that the country
recognizes his sterling personal
worth, which in a measure offsets his
temperamental deficiencies.
Another powerful factor in Mr..
Wilson's candidacy is his "%watchful
waiting policy with respect to the
European nations, Notwithstanding it's
effect upon the Mexican situation.
The rank and file of America do not
care to become involved in the Euro
pean war. They are inclined to think,
we believe. that Wilson will do his.
best to keep the country out of it.
Between Roosevelt and Wilson, we
assume that no inconsiderable number
of American voters would have gone
to Wilson upon the assumption that
Mr.. Roosevelt would have US entan-
sgled in the eastern embroglio il not
concluded before the new administra-
ton assumes the reins. Some of this
element will undoubtedly swing to
Hughes, but whether in sufficient
force to determine the result is prob
8ematical.
But there is no gainsaying the fact
that. notwithstanding Mr.. Wilson'S
personal popularity, the present adj
ministration has not popularized it
self throughout the country.
If Mr., Wilson is reelected it will
be because the people prefer to have
his administration continued, know
ing what it is, and weak as they know
1t to be, rather than take chances on
one who has not had an opportunity
TO be weighed in the scales of public
thought.