Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1916-11-02
"IF WE ELECT MIR. WILSON'--- AS
OWEN WISTER SEES 1T IN THIS
WEEKS ISSUE OF GOLFERS

Question after question they have
seen blundered and bungled, crisis
after crisis shirked and side-stepped,
until they have come to believe as
thoroughly and seriously as ever they
have believed anything in their lives
that Mr.. Wilson has brought great
harm and confusion to us, and that
through defects in character he is ut
terly unfit to be President. His way
of meeting the railroad mems threat
to strike has revealed to more citi-
zens more than any act of his ESQ
masquerader, hiding weakness in
words and lodging every political dan
ger that true man should face.
But why then should there be any
apprehension that Mr.. Wilson will be
reelected? 1t is because of the fear
that the Damn-it-yes Club is still
small body compared to the millions
who have not yet clearly detected, be-
meath Mr.. Wilson's fine talk his twist
ed acts. 1t takes more attention and
more thought than most voters ever
give to public questions to discern
clearly the havoc in our affairs, both
domestic and foreign, that Mr.. Will
son has already made. Too few have
seen through him. Too few under
stand the blundering feebleness of
those inconsistencies about neutrality.
Too few know or care that the Fourth
OF July means more than firecrackers,
that through it we owe a duty to DEM
ocracy and the world, and that we fail
ed, that Mr.. Wilson played Judas to
the Fourth of July. Europe, weltering
in her own failure, looked to us for q
word and got none. To us, the great
est of free governments, who had
boasted ourselves the big safe beacon
or democracy, free government over
the sea in its death struggle with
despotism turned for a ray of light,
and Mr.. Wilson turned the light out.
he said we were everybody's friend.
He showed Europe we were not up to
our Fourth of July brag, he side-step-
ped the greatest chance to make good
that we have ever had. One spoken
word of protest from him about Bel
GUM would have put us right. His
silence put us wrong with the world,
and (what is much worse) with our
selves. When the test came we prov
ed bogus.
Who Kept Us Out of War?
Apologists for Mr.. Wilson say he
could not take such a step as to con-
denim one side in Europe and approve
another - that he had no precedent"
for it. Well. he had. He had Daniel
Webster and President Monroe in
1928, If he needed any precedent"
and as he has written history of the
United States, how did he happen to
skip it? Greece was struggling in 1929
as was Belgium in 1914. Webster told
Congress: THE Greeks address the
civilized world with a pathos not easy
to be resisted. Z. They stretch out
their arms to the Christian commu-
mites of the earth. beseeching them,
cestors, by the consideration of their
ruined cites and villages, by their
wives and children sold into accursed
slavery that they would extend
to them at least some token of COM
passionate regard" The whole Incl
in the New York Times of Novem-
Der FL, 1915.
In 1928, after suffering intolerable
atrocities, the Grecian Senate had
formally appealed to the United States: !:
in 1914 Belgium came to us with a
similar appeal. In that day President
Monroe, as we'll as Webster, addressed
Congress on the subject. And in that
day was introduced a resolution to
provide for defraying the expense in :
cident to our official investigation of
the atrocities in Greece. Thus in that
day was our attitude as the champion
of free government and of small
states defined by President Monroe.
But in this day no token of compass
sionate regard" went from Mr. Wilson
to afflicted and appealing Belgium. On
the contrary, he invited us to be neu-
tral even IN our opinions, and to the
Belgian deputation that waited on him
he delivered one of those smooth ut :
terances of his, grown so familiar, that
flow from a cold heart and a ready
tongue, and are so full of virtue and
so empty of reality. Too few Ameri-
cans care that thus Mr.. Wilson de-
graded the country. Too few realize
that Germany has slapped our face
and Mexico has spit in it again and
again. Too few can reason out quick
ly that when Mr.. Wilson signs an
"eight-hour" law with four pens at
the end of a perfect day he is buy
ing the votes of the railroad brother
hood with money that will come out
of the pockets of all the rest of la
Dor.
Now the few who have seen through
Mr.. Wilson and learned his incom-
petent and shifty nature hear the
same thing wherever they go, indoors
and out, in street cars and trains, and
steamboats, and hotel, repeated by the