The Owosso times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1897-1926, 1916-09-22
LEADING PROGRESSIVE
DECLARES FOR HUGHES
Continued from page y

y
ded from one crisis to the next, again
and again narrowly escaping disaster
We have all heard him declare
against Intervention in Mexico, while
actually intervening to dictatae who
should and who should not hold office
there; and denounce war against
Mexico while actually engaged in war
With war on every side of us, We
all heard him, in his second annual
message, solemnly assure the country
that we had not been negligent Of Ma
tional defense. 1t was not true; and
later on he himself proved that it was
not true by proclaiming aloud the
need for what he had solemnly assur-
ed us we already had.
For more than year after the
world-war began, Wilson did not raise
a finger to put us in a condition of
defense. Only the proverbial good
luck of America has kept us from
paying the bitterest price for his I'M
forgiveable neglect.
We have all heard him ridicule the
idea of gerater navy, then declare
for incomparably the greatest navy
in the world, and then go back on
that.
We have all heard him declare for
eXempting our coast-wise trade from
tolls in the Panama Canal; and have
seen him show our own people and
the English that he did not mean it.
We have seen him elected on a plat
form which pledged him to a single
term as President, and then become
q candidate for another term.
We have all heard him declare for
the Conservation of our natural re-
sources; and have seen him neglect
that policy, and refuse his help to de-
feat the Shields waterpower bill, the
most dangerous attack on Conserva-
ton since Ballinger's effort to turn
Alaska over to the Guggenheims.
We have all heard him declare for
efficiency in Government, and have
seen him set the pork-barrel first and
throw efficiency away! l have known
official Washington from the inside
For six Administrations. In that time
The Government business has never
been so badly done and so extrava-
yantly as it is now done under Wilson.
We have all heard him announce
himself as the champion of Civil Ser
vice reform; and have seen him turn
he Government Departments over to
he spoilsmen as no other President |
las done in twenty years.
We have all heard him declare for
'itiless publicity; and have seen him
onduct the most secret administra-
ion Of our time.
We have all heard him announce
imself as President of all the people,
nd have seen him, as the most parti-
an President Of his generation, fout
nd oppose the Progressives, whom
ow, because he needs them, he seeks
0 conciliate and enlist.
Worst of all is this: When every
of freedom and equality for
'hich our fathers fought was at
take in the great war, when our
hole country eagerly awaited the
of the President, Wilson
edged. He refused to take sides on
he greatest moral issue of our time.
[e advised our people to be "neutral
ven in thought undecided between
ght and wrong. While our friends
broad were fighting for the princi-
les we held equally with them, he
lught us that profits and ease were
etter than self-respect. President
Iilson has done our Nation the most
'riOus injury that any leader can do
} any people by making us finch
18th him from great moral decision.
hereby he weakened our hold as
alton on the principles which alone
IN make any people self-respecting,
fe and strong.
Having led us wrong on the ground
at we must be neutral in the face of
e deliberate breaking Of the world s
,ace, he has just reversed himself
rain, and in his speech at Shadow
avn now assures us that "No nation
n any longer remain neutral as
,ainst any wilful disturbance of the
ace Of the world
1t is bad enough that Wilson IS for
On policy has left us, as the war
avs toward its end, without friend
nong the great nations Of the world,
ID without the respect of any one of
EN-. What is worse is that he has
pit us from standing up for what we
low to be right.
The ignoble standard of profit over
inciple which Mr.. Wilson forced