The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-04-14
HISTORY MAKING.

try.
HISTORY MAKING.
History is making very fast these
days. More things have happend polit-
Ideally in the last few weeks than have
been crowded into many months be-
fore. The pitiful policies of the Will
son administration are bearing bitter
fruit The vacillating views of the
president, following rapidly changing
conditions, are depiorable. The nation
is not humbled, but Inundated A
few weeks ago the attitude of public
men today would have seemed almost
Uncomfortable.
President Wilson is not getting any
where. A man of high ideals, of won
derful historical knowledge, meaning
well and of great academic ability, he
has fluked in attempting to solve
practical political problems to an ex-
tent which is today arousing the ma
ton to the fact that we need a real
leader. man of power and prestige,
who has proven the confidence hereto
fore placed in him. Wilson is patriot
ic, but he is also pathetic.
The remarkable turning during the
last few weeks, even days, toward
Theodore Roosevelt, is amazing, and
yet after all, it is natural-it is logi-
cal.
| At the commencement of his term,
the Wilson administration was so
thoroughly Organized, and inoculated
with the pacific policies of the late
secretary of state, that it has seemed
| impossible for President Wilson to get
the virus out of his political system.
| Its effects were far reaching. Up TO
two years ago, President Wilson was
apparently IN sympathy with the anti
preparedness program of the leading
member of his cabinet. Theodore
Roosevelt warned the administration
of its weakness.
| Finally, the president attempted to
stand on a platform of preparedness,
but with a program so vague and
which so failed to meet the views of
his Secretary of War Garrison, one of
the strong members of the cabinet,
that he resigned,
A few weeks ago this country did
not dream that it was unprepared to
protect it's own people on the Mexican
| border. In the last few weeks it has
| been astounded to see that a Mexican
highwayman could raid an American
city, murder it's citizens and disap
pear quickly and remain uncaptured
and unpublished.
Wilson had no facilities for moving
/ troops after Villa. Motor trucks must
first be dispatched from Detroit; mu-
nitions must be sent from eastern fac
tories: rations must be dispatched
from st. Louis by passenger trains.
We permitted our people to ship
powder and ball and guns to Villa. A
natural bandit, Wilson attempted to
negotiate with him. The part of Car
rama was taken. When we go down
into that country to help Carranza
crush his great enemy Villa, Carranza
denies us the use of trains to trans
port men and munitions! President
Wilson temporizes Now Carranza
has ordered the United States to take
it's soldiers out of Mexico. Isn't it a
state of unpreparedness and amaze
ment?
When Dewey was ordered in 1898
to capture or destroy the Spanish
fleet, did he wait for powder? He was
prepared. and who prepared him
Theodore Roosevelt, Assistant Secre-
tary of the Navy, who months before
dispatched the necessary munitions
for an emergency.
1t has been a year since the Lusi-
tania was sunk. with the dreadful
drownings of Americans. Months ago
Wilson victory of diplomacy was her
aided, yet today there appears as
Germany as there was twelve months
ago.
1t was President Wilson, who sent
our navy and American lives to COM
pei President Huerta to salute the
flag. 1t was not saluted. 1t was
President Wilson, who warned Ameri-
cans from Mexico, but did not warn
them from the ships of belligerent
nations.
| Theodore Roosevelt is today the
safest, sanest man who can handle
the great questions of national honor
which have been propounded unan-
swered to the present administration.
This leads to the growing impression
of this paper that Roosevelt will be
nominated at Chicago by the Repub-
licans, and that he will be elected in
November and be our next president
Five or six months ago, the State
Journal felt convinced that Justice
Hughes was the logical man to lead
the opposition to President Wilson.
In November, it was a question of get
ting the two factions of the RepubIi-
can party together again; or, if you
prefer it. the two parties. Republicans
and Progressives. into one. Hughes
was generally acceptable to all the Re
publicans, regular and recalcitrant a
strong, high minded, capable man like
Hughes was needed. 1t appeared that
he did not want the office: that his