Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-10-30

L
the Patient
EVERY American. regardless Of party
~ Affiliations, must regret that condi-
tions have arisen which justify our two
former Presidents in criticizing most
severely the course Of the President now
| in Office. It has been the custom Of
former Presidents to refrain from at
tacks upon the actual President. They
Office and they have patriotically kept
| silent. Mr.. Roosevelt has been the only
notable exception to this rule He has
consistently prodded Mr.. Wilson with
criticism for his lukewarmness and for
his hesitation to take any decided posi-
tion in the years preceding our entrance
into the war, and since we Joined the
Allies he has urged upon him in season
and out of season a more vigorous prose-
cution of the war.
But Mr.. Roosevelt has been a voice
crying in the silent wilderness Of regret
full Americans who have refrained from
speaking their minds lest they might
increase the difficulties with which Mr..
Wilson has been struggling.
The Presidents appeal for the cleo
tion of partisan Congress has unsealed
the lips of every one. Mr.. Taft at once
challenged the truth Of Mr.. Wilson's
charges against the Republican party
and proved their falsity by chapter and
Tn &c nf Ind, rto1
temper and slow to anger, but the red
heat of warranted Indignation burned in
his article in the Public Ledger last
Saturday.
Mr.. Roosevelt in his speech in New
York on Monday night enlarged upon the
charges of Mr.. Taft, reviewing the whole
history of the conduct of the war and Of
the attitude Of the President and of the
Republicans and Democrats in Congress
toward it. This speech is one of the
most important pronouncements in con-
temporary political history. and it is an
American document of the highest char
acter.
In the first place, Mr.. Roosevelt COM
pared the attitude Of Mr.. Wilson with
that Of Lincoln in 1864 and pointed out
that Lincoln never appealed for the sup
port of men as Republicans or as Demo-
Gratis, but that he asked for the support
Of all friends of the Union. . He did not
care whether they criticized him and his
conduct of the war or not so long as
hcl IN ho of L.
Union and would do their best to help
him preserve it. His Cabinet was made
up of Democrats and Republicans.
Some of its members criticized him con-
stantly, but they were efficient and he
kept them as his advisers, because he
thought more of the great cause for
which he was fighting than for the good
opinions of any man toward his per-
sonal interest.
If Mr.. Wilson had followed the Lin
coin precedent he would have formed
Cabinet of the ablest men in the coun-
try, regardless of party. But he did not
do it. He retained Cabinet of Demo-
Gratis, most if not all of whom are too
weak to assert themselves against him,
and he did not call to his assistance able
men to carry out the shipbuilding pro-
gram, the aircraft program and the pro-
gram of supplying munitions until he
had been forced to do something by the
exhibition through the investigations of
the Congress of the ineficency of the
men in charge of the work.
Mr.. Wilson could have had the advice
of the best men in the country if he had
sought it. But he did not want it.
And now Mr.. Wilson appeals for the
election of a Democratic Congress in
order that there may be no divided
counsels and in order that the settlement
of the peace terms and the work of re-
construction may be carried on in the
same way that the war has been prose-
cuted, solely through orders from the
White House. He asks for it in spite of
the fact that, as Mr.. Roosevelt says,
his own party supported him when he
was wrong and opposed him when he
was right and in spite of the fact that
the execution of the war plans would
have been impossible if the Republicans
had not put country above party and
voted the necessary money and the nec-
essary authority
The President spoke of the necessity of
unity Of command at home as well as in
the military field abroad, forgetting that
the Government created by the Constitu-
tion is not military autocracy. There
must be counsel and the Congress is the