The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1918-04-20
SOME CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM

Letter. the president, the VCe-presldent and the nauOHHI CU1-
mitee of the presidents party. And the crux of it all lies in
that last little paragraph. Let us bury our partisan hatchets,
etc.
He who crthises the a management through partisan
bias . = = is n better than a prO-German.
Our skipper" now happens to be a democrat, and all loyal
republicans, prohibiuOnbts or socialists should stand by him al
stanchy a they would expect the democrats to stand by them.
. We arr in this struggle ito win and we should IL rally
around wilson-and hold up his hands and let politics go hang
until we settle with the kaiser. =
Criticism that calls attention to things that can be remedhd
and suggests the remedies is helpful and is welcomed but crhi-
cim that. from its very nature. shows it was made to secure
party advantage is destructive and hinders the successful prose
Let us bury our partisan hatchets till the common enemy
the menace of German mihtarism-is buried, too.
Thousands of us-yea, millions-did that on the second
day of last April, when the president went before congress ana
asked authority to use the resources of this country to protect
it against further aggressions and insults of a gang OF SWORD
rattlers and baby killers that had Knocked us and spat In our
faces at viii for nearly three long years. We buried the part-
san Ratchet and buried it deep, and we intend to see that IT
stays buried. And we intend, if that be humanity possible, to
see that another partisan Ratchet, one that has been too much
lin evidence of late, is buried alongside of it, until 1--WE first set
tie with the kaiser"
The country has not forgotten the "unruly eleven" sena-
tors, mostly of the presidents own party, who tried to deny TO
the government the right to arm merchant vessels defensively
against. the German vipers of the sea.
1t hasn't forgotten the part that La Toilette, with Stone,
Reed, Vardaman, Gore, Hardwick and others of the presidents
party in the senate played in that infamous drama.
1t hasn't forgotten the craven pacifism and the opposition
to every form of preparedness on the part of Claude Kitchin,
the floor leader and others of the presidents party in the house.
1t hasn't forgotten the spectacle of the speaker, also OF the
presidents party and second only in point of power to the
president himself-it hasn't forgotten the spectacle of the
speaker leaving his exalted station to take the floor to oppose
The selective draft bill, which the president rightly urged as the
only honest, the only just as we'll as the only possible means OF
securing an army.
1t hasn't forgotten the speakers classification of the con-
script with the convict, nor his threat to "go cunning" with his
shot gun for "the skunkers" back home who dared to wire him
urging support of the president. And that was since we enter
ed the war.
The country would have liked to forget all these if it had
been permitted. 1t wanted to see all partisan hatchets remain
buried "nl the common ~enemy-German militarism-is bur-
led, too" And one of the big parties in the state represented
by its own chief offender, La Toilette, proceeded at the first
opportunity to "clean house" His colleague, Senator Husting
died, leaving a vacancy. The governor, elected on the same
ticket with La Toilette before we entered the war, called the
state legislature in special session and held it in session until
it formally repudiated La Toilette as disloyal to the nation and
to the patriotic sentiment of his state.
And then the same group of men and those in sympathy
with them proceeded to nominate for the existing vacancy IT.
vine L. Lenroot who, as a member of the house, had voted for
every war measure from the. original resolution to the. last ap-
preparation. He also had been elected with La Toilette, before
we went. into the war. But when La Toilette betrayed his party
and his country Lenroot assisted in the house cleaning
Would that the presidents own party in some other states even
more damnably betrayed by congressional disloyalty than Wis
consin had done as good a job.
But what happened? Lenroot, who was nominated and
vouched for by the very element that had purged Wisconsin,
who had beaten La Follettes candidate by 10000 and the favor
tie of the presidents party by 1900 and polled more votes than
the presidents party cast for all candidates, was asked to with
draw and support the presidents favorite, Mr.. Davies, "to
avert the danger of elecing a socialist pledged to oppose the
war" And when he didn't, the presidents party sent its speak
ers in flocks from Washington, including Senator Pittman OF
Nevada, and even the ce-president, to give force to the cam
paign slogan 'The President Wants Davies" Well, the loyal
people of Wisconsin didn't, and by an overwhelming vote they
told the president, in effect, that before he attempted to influ-
ence elections by applying his "acid test" of loyalty to candi-
dates of other parties in Wisconsin, he had better first apply it
Ito the most distinguished leaders of his own party in congress
from Missouri, Nebraska, Mississippi, Georgia, Oklahoma, New
York and several other states.
And TO indicate how shallow the grave of one partisan