Middletown transcript., 1916-07-08
WILSON SELF CONDEMNED

murderous submarines have not sunk
single neutral passenger ship-not
drowned one helpless babe at its
mothers breast. Therefore Americans
and other neutrals having business IN
Europe. may now use their right to 60
upon the free high seas without the
peril of being slain by this monstrous
German submarine campaign against
women ami children.
Does Mr.. Wilson deserve any credit
for this cessation of Germanic barbar-
ism? Not in the least, but to the con-
trary, this very fact is his cond smnation,
for it proves that had he on February
Is, 1915, when he uttered his first warn
ing to these German assassins of the
sea, acted as he did in his last warning
that has checked these outrages, Ger
many would then, over a year ago,
have ceased as she now has, and the
horrible sinking of the Lusitania and
the long list of later massacres of inno-
cent men, women and children, would
have been prevented.
But no, Mr.. Wilson must play politics
must not offend the German-American
vote Then, too, infrm of purpose, be-
lieving in "peace at any price, that "a
man can be too proud to fight etc, he
dissembled, wrote one thing and meant
another, just as he had been doing for
years in his feeble, vacillating Mexican,
policy, and the Germans knew well
enough that his big bold words-meant
nothing
So the submarine slaughter went on
for Is long and dreadful months, Mr.
Wilson now and then puncturing the
German bomb roars with his silly note
chatter
But a graver charge than mere weak
ness and insincerity must be lodged
against Mr.. Wilson's administration in
this matter of German under-sea muir
ders of American citizens, and an ugly
word spells the charge treason.
Mr.. Wilson's then Secretary of Stale,
his first cabinet officer and at that time
his intimate personal friend-the man
who made him president, indeed-this
fellow Bryan, secretly told the Austrian
Ambassador Dumba-a and thru him, the
Kaiser-that the President S bold, warn
ing note to Germany was not to be taken
seriously but was intended ''for political
effect-for home consumption only"
This perfdious act was just as much
deliberate treason as Benedict Arnold's
secret attempts to deliver West Point to
the British-in fact it cost more Ameri-
can lives and vastly greater loss in trea-
sure than did Arnold's treason-and for
this shameful betrayal of his country's
interests, this mountebank Bryan
stands -pilloried for all time-fallen
so low, that tho for three times the
presidential standard bearer of the
Democratic Party. he was unable to get
into the last Democratic National Con-
vention except as a reporter
But what about Mr.. Wilson's share in
this treason that secretly nullified the
force of the warning which would else
have averted the Lusitania massacre ?
He was at that time wholly under the
baneful influence of Bryan's foolish and
unpatriotic peace notions, as his whole
course proves, and much as one would
like to acquit him of so serious charge
this does not, in view of the facts in the
case, seem possible Mr.. Wilson must
have known it, for his whole admins
tration not only in Mexican matters,
hu+ aIco in +bo Eerroop affair haS honn
marked thruout by series of secret,
private, unofficial negotiations, inter
views, conferences etc., with those
foreign governments, and to say one
thing in his note and give private tip
to Dumba that it was all buncome,
would be quite in keeping with his other
illegal practices.
Be that as it may, since Mr.. Wilson's
last note, when accompanied with
assurances to Germany, that this time
he was not talking thru his hat,
stopped the German sea murders, the
conclusion is inescapable that equal
sincerity and honesty in his first note
would have stopped those murders be-
fore they began. This we repeat, is
Mr.. Wilson'S condemnation-his self
condemnation.