The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1916-07-14
Why Wilson Should Win
From the New York World.

capacity for the development OF the race"
In our opinion the greatest living leader of such a demOc-
racy is Woodrow Wilson.
During the last two years Nj. Wilson has guided the re-
public through the most critical period of its history since the
civil war. The problems his immediate predecessors had to
solve were chids play in comparison with those that confront
ed him. He has rested under a burden Of responsibility heav-
Ter than that Of any other President except Washington and
Lincoln. Through it all he has kept the peace and honor of
the nation and the true faith of democracy.
It is easy enough to find fault with the President, Mr..
Hughes had hardly thrown off the robes of his judicial Office
before he made a smashing attack upon Mr.. Wilson, but, like
all assailants of the President, MI. Hughes did not venture
to say what he would have done that Mr.. Wilson failed to do
or what he would have left undone that Mr.. Wilson did.
For an answer to all such criticism we shall go to another
eminent republican, Samuel w. Mccall, now governor of Mass
achusetts, who, in a lecture at Yale last year, on "The Liberty
"To rebuild history in imagination and to avoid in our
mind the errors that have been made is not at all a difficult
art. 1t is no more difficult than to get rich out of yesterdays
stock market. But the statesman who stands in the front of
the advancing line and facing the future has no control over the
past. His domain is the present and he strives to Influence
what is to come. He must act before he knows how things
are going to turn out"
between President Wilson and Mr.. Hughes in this campaign.
The President is the man who has been in the front Of the ad-
vancing line, and who had to act before he knew how things
were going turn out. Mr.. Hughes has been sheltered in the cool
and quiet cloisters of the United States Supreme court, and
now PUSHES out to censure the man who has borne the heat and
When judges like Mr.. Hughes are ~perplexed by an intri-
cate and complicated case, they order the lawyers to reargue
it. The cases that have come before the President could not
be reargued. He was compelled to decide without delay or hesita-
ton questions that involved the destiny of the nation for half
a century. There was nobody, with whom ne could share the
responsibility. The peace and welfare of 100,000,000 hinged
upon his word, and he has brought them safely through each
difficulty.
One of the complaints of the Presidents critics is that
while his attitude toward Germany was sound, he deserves un-
sparing censure for the long delays that ensued before the
imperial government conceded his demands. This is like at
lacking Mr.. Hughes for having been nominated on the third
ballot instead of the first ballot. Grave issues must be settled
when they can be settled, and between negotiation and war
there is no middle course.
He is a very conceited man who dares to stand before the
American people and tell them in detail wherein he would have
been a better President than Woodrow Wilson. None of the
Presidents critics. including MIR. Hughes has vet undertaken
that task Nor do we think that Mr. HupheS with all the
advantages that came from rebuilding history in imagination
and getting rich out OF Yesterdays stock market will venture
to submit a bill of particulars to prove that in the midst of the
world disaster of modern civilization he would have been a
wiser and an ADLER leader of democracy than the President has
The American people owe their peace and prosperity to
Woodrow Wilson and they owe to him the most important pro-
gram of progressive domestic legislation ever enacted by a
single administration since WashingtOn's. He has taken pluto
cracy and privilege out of popular government and put the
republic back on the democratic track. They are further in
debted to him for the most comprehensive measures of national
defense ever undertaken in time of ~peace-measures that bid
fair to solve the perpexing problem of arming a democracy and
still holding it fast to the best traditions of democracy.
His leadership has made the country ready to face the new
problems that a world war has imposed upon mankind. He has
pointed the way TO a new peace OF the nations by whlch the
weak can be protected against the strong and the security of
each guaranteed by the strength of all. American democracy
cannot r%epudiate him without %repudiating its highest ideals
and aspirations.
We should not dream of paying the President the silly
compliment Of saying that he had made no mistakes. Like all
other human beings, he has committed faults of reasoning and
faults Of judgment, but his administration as a whole has moved
ever forward, ever in the right direction, ever IN the pathway
of true Americanism and true democracy. It's impulses have
been the right impulses, its motives the right motives, its prin-
cipes the right principles.
No other country in the world would dream at a time like
this of driving a tried leader like Woodrow Wilson out of Office
to make an experiment. No other country in the world would
hold it's peace and its welfare in such light esteem that it would
care to take chances and substitute the unknown for the known.
Mr.. Wilson has given to the American people the one truly
progressive administration that thew have had since liberty and
union Overcame slavery and secession, only to sink into the
~quicksands of plutOcracy and reaction.
Whatever the outcome of the election may be, his place
in history is fixed. He will rank not only among the great
Presidents Of the United States but among the great leaders
of democracy for all time.
1t is not Mr.. Wilson who is on trial in this campaign, but
the American people-their solidarity of citizenship, their
seriousness of purpose, their understanding of the crisis through
which they passed and the grave questions that they face,
their comprehension of the part that this country should play
in the restoration of peace, and their appreciation of the inhu-
ence that American democracy should exert upon the future of
civilization.
The one question to be decided at the polls is whether in
the face of this record the American people are so frivilous and
so unstable that they are ready to gamble with destiny and
reckessly risk the future for the excitement of changing the
administration of their government in the midst of a world
crisis. Are they ready to go before a war-wrecked Europe
~ N 49, ill., -a i.