New-York tribune., 1916-02-16
The Issue.


Elihu Root has rendered no greater service
TO his country and to his party than that
which his speech last night constitutes.
He has told the truth. the simple, sober
truth. but that truth which so many poll
ticians have shrunk from telling lest they
might thereby offend the German-Ameri-
can vote.
Save for Theodore Roosevelt no Ameri-
can statesman has spoken with the frank
ness which was employed by one Of the
greatest of our Secretaries of State. Mr..
Roosevelt himself has not more clearly,
more emphatically, indicated the meaning
70 America Of the Belgian infamy than
did Mr.. Root last night.
Under M Roots careful and searching
examination the foreign policy Of the
United States is revealed for the shameful,
cowarGly thing It has been, and there IS
again presented to American citizens the
picture of their country as the whole world
sees il.
Cowardice, blindness. selhshness-these
have been the things that have predomi-
mated in Mr.. Wilson's course and Mr. Root
reveals with merciless skill the whole
shameful story that stretches from the
"strict accountability" note to the present
hour. when those who only dared to talk
have lost even the vocal courage necessary
TO protest against the prospective murder
Of American citizens.
What Mr. Root said last night The
Tribune has said for many weeks and
months. 1t has said this since the mo-
ment when it became convinced that the
whole Wilson Germanic policy was lie
and a sham. designed TO deceive people
and benefit a selfish politician. utterly
destitute of any concern for the life and
for the honor of the citizen or the nation.
To satisfy fancied political necessities
Mr.. Wilson gambed with American lives
and American honor. precisely as he has
gambled with American security in the
matter of national defence. The resigna-
ton of Mr. Garrison disclosed the sordid
and shameful story of the betrayal of ma
tional security 1t served to complete the
picture forming in the minds of millions Of
Americans.
But Nh Roots service to his party is
equally patent There were Republicans
thousands of them, who hoped to win the
next election by turning TO their advantage
Nr. Wilson's mistakes. These men were
rot willing TO speak openly and brsvely
hey were too selhshly hypocrtical to care
bout Belgium or the principles which the
Germans did to death in Belgium They
we're too eager to get the German vote &c
care for the dead of the Lusitania or the
living on other imperlled ships They were
willing 70 win the election by policy Of
silence which might enlist those who crit
cised Mr.. Wilson for what he left undonc
and those who hated him for what he hac
pretended TO do
fll this is impossible now. The Rcpubli
can party Of the nation cannot repudiatc
Mr.. Root speech and Mr.. Root opinion
without openly and frankly confesslng a
moral cowardice as great a. that which
their opponents have displayed. They can
no more be half hyphen and half pa.
n triot" than the Wing party of sixty years
y ago could be half slave and half free"
The issue OF the next national cam.
paign, as Tho Tribune has said before
will not be the tariff Ii will not even be
Mr.. Wilson's Mexican policy. II will he
Americanlsm versus cowardce. II will be
the American ideal and the American ira.
dition, challenged as these have been by
the mean, sordid ignoble thing that has
been the course Of the present Administra.
ton.
Americans could not fail To repudiate
the Wilson course and the Wilson worc
without proving false to their own history
their own past, their own national exis
tence. II was not that we should be pros
porous. material selfish that the men OF
.76 and 1861 dared and suffered. Those
who died ON all our battlefelds died that
here might live moral and spiritual
orcc in America, and they died believing