The Washington herald., 1916-09-12
Pinchot VIII Support Hughes.

among the candidates for the Presidency.
l am neither Democrat nor Republican,
but a Progressive. Yet, there being no Pro-
gressiye nominee, unless ! choose to support a
candidate who cannot be elected, / must vote
for either Wilson or Hughes.
For many months after his Inauguration, |
thought well of President Wilson. In many re-
spects l liked what he said about what he was
going to do. He talked we'll and made good
impression. 1t was only when l began to check
up what he said by what he did that l was
forced to change my view.
In the end l came to see that President Viii
son has 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 statement 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 disavowal for the murder of Americans
on the Lusitania.
| do not say that Wilson should have thrust
us into 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 escaping
disaster
We have all heard him declare against in
tervention in Mexico, while actually intervening
to dictate who should and who should not hold
Office there; and denounce war against Mexico
while actually engaged in war.
With every side, we all heard him, in
his second annual message, solemnly assure the
country that we had not been negligent of ma
tional defense. 1t was not true; and later on he
himself proved that it was not true by proclaim
ing aloud the need for what he had solemnly
assured we already had.
We have all heard him declare for exempting
our coast-wise trade from tolls in the Panama
Canal; and have him show our own people
and the English that he did not mean it.
We have seen him elected on platform which
pledged him to single term as President, and
then become candidate for another term
We have all heard him declare for the con-
servation of our natural resources and have
seen him neglect that policy and refuse his help
to defeat the Shields water power bill, the most
dangerous attack on conservation since Ballinger's
effort to turn Alaska over to the Guggenheims.
in government, and have seen him set the pork
barrel first and throw efficiency away. l have
known official Washington from the inside for
six administrations In that time the government
business has never been so badly done and so
cxtravagantly as it is now done under Wilson.
We have all heard him announce himself as
the champion of civil service reform; and have
seen him turn the government departments over
to the spoilsmen as no other President has done
in twenty years.
We have all heard him declare for pitiless pub
licity; and have seen him conduct the most secret
administration of our time
Worst of all is this: When every principle of
freedom and equality for which our fathers fought
at stake in the great war, when our whole
country eagerly awaited the leadership of the
President, Wilson lodged. He refused to take
sides on the greatest moral issue of time.
He advised our people to be neutral even in
thought" undecided between right and wrong.
While friends abroad were fighting for the
principles held equally with them, he taught
us that profits and were better than sef-re-
spect President Wilson has done our nation
the most serious injury that any leader can do
to any people by making us finch with him from
great moral decision Thereby weakened
our hold as a nation on the principles which
alone make any people self-respecting, safe
and strong.
Having led wrong on the ground that we
must be neutral in the face of the deliberate
breaking of the worlds peace, he has just re-
versed himself again, and in his speech at Shadow
Lawn assures us that "No nation can any
longer remain neutral against any wfu dis
turbance of the peace of the world"
1t is bad enough that Wilson's foreign policy
has left u.s. as the draws toward its end,
without the respect of any of them. What
is worse is that he has kept us from standing
up for what we know to be right.
The ignoble standard of profit over principle
which Mr.. Wilson forced upon the country in
our foreign relations, he has applied to himself
as President. In what he has said, done, and
left undone the record shows him steadily domi-
mated by political expediency.
These facts, and many others like them, have
forced me to see that what Mr. Wilson says is no
sign of what he has DONE or of what he will do.
The one thing his record shows is that what he
CT a0HS for l.. T.