The Democratic banner. (Mt. Vernon, Ohio) 1898-192?, 1916-10-17

win nrSt-hand knowledge OF Am
oassador Gerard's return to this coun-
Try, from Germany and what it means,
the New York World carries the fol-
owing significant editorial:
Should the American people repudi-
ate President Wilson at the polls next
month, they may take it for granted
that the German Government will re-
! oudiate its submarine pledges to- the
President.
! A resumption of ruthless submarine
warfare on the part of Germany means
severance of diplomatic relations,
and a severance of those relations will
in all probability result in war.
There is no escape from the logic of
The situation
Do the American people want peace
with Wilson, or war with Hughes?
They must decide that question for
themselves Nov. Z.
! Ambassador Gerard has returned to
the United States to give information
to the Government of the submarine
menace that is again hanging over the
Nation. The situation in Germany was
vividly described in wireless dis
patch printed in The World yesterday
from a staff correspondent who ac-
companied Mr. Gerard home. Mr..
Swope's reports are confirmed by ca
Diagrams from Amsterdam which state
that the advocates of the Tirpitz policy
now claim majority of the Reichstag.
Germany is watching the Presiden-
tial contest in the United States as a
keen and interested partisan. How
Keen and how interested that partisan
! ship is may be estimated from these
paragraphs OF Mr.. Swope's despatch:
The defeat Of President Wilson
on Nov. would be greeted in the
| German Empire as gigantic Ger
man victory, and ! was told by
Cabinet members and business
men, soldiers and professors, that
flags would be hung out of every
window in honor of the occasion.
This feeling Is predicated first
upon the intense desire to smash
President Wilson for his alleged
unneutral attitude toward Gar
many, and second, upon the belief
that Germany has much to expect
from Mr.. Hughes. There ls no
| pretense at concealing the fact
that MIR. Hughes is the choice of
Germany for the American Presi-
dency, and there Is no successful
cIoaking the beiief-although the
effort is made to cover 1t - that
Germany has much to gain as a
recompense for its support of the
Republican candidate.
II is matter of record that pre-
tended American organizations in
Germany have raised money for
propaganda work lin which Ger
many Is still a fond beIieVer) for
Hughes in America, and the re-
port is freely circulated in Berlin
that st. John Gaffney, the discred-
tied former Consul General at
Munich, took with him money to
use in supporting Hughes among
the American Irish and Catholics.
II President Wilson is beaten, the
Germans will have right to regard 1t
as "a gigantic German victory" and to
decorate their, windows with flags.
From their point of view, the Presi-
dents defeat win imply the utter re-
lection of his foreign policy by the
|, American people, with all that such re-
lection means to the German mind.
Moreover, it viii have been done by
German votes in the publicly avowed
purpose of destroying the President
politically for offending Germany.
Official Germany may not know what
Mr., Hughes will do, but 1t will know
that the President has been defeated,
and by the German vote, that Mr..
= Hughes will be without power until
March 4 and that the Government OF
the United States will be adrift. To
assume that the Imperial Government
win not take the fullest advantage oi
its opportunity is to assume that the
German war eagle has become dove
o The appearance of German war sub
marines in the Western Atlantic has
II aroused a great apprehension and an
.s xiety in the United States and awak
m ened the American people to a realiza
1t tion of the important fact that the
submarine issue is not dead. 1t has
n. been ouiescent for months, but sud
or denly it takes on new life both her,
in and i'm Germany,
IS. As the ,ortunes Of war shift agains
,y the Teutonic powers on the eastern
as aud western fronts, German publ,
III sentiment in favor OF resumption o
nd ruthless submarine~methods is certain
@ to become more and more insistent