Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-11-18
REPuBLIcAN OPPORTUNITY
The Leaders Of Congress Must Be Men Who
Know the Direction in Which the
Nation Wishes 10 Be Led

| UaIeS 1OT LHe Va VIC 'hooSS
in the next Congress. Among those
mentioned are Mann, of Illinois, if he is
we'll enough to take the, Office; Gillett,
of Massachusetts,; Longworth and Fess,
of Ohio Fordney, of Michigan; Camp
bell, of Kansas; Moore, of this State;
Towner, of Iowa, and Madden, Of Hi
nois, if Mann declines to enter the race.
II is not our purpose at this time to
discuss the qualifications of any of these
| gentlemen. 1t is enough to say that
| some of them are better than others.
| What we do desire to do is to call upon
| the country to express itself on the char
acter of the leadership in the House of
Representatives of the Sixty-sixth Con-
gress. If the nation is to be served as
it should be served every man out of
sympathy with the progressive spirit of
the times must be deprived, so far as
possible, of the power to interfere with
the passage of legislation fitted to meet
the new conditions which are upon us.
This does not mean that the old lead
ers should necessarily be forced to the
rear, but only that unless they have
learned their lesson they should give way
to men in fuller sympathy with modern
America.
The Republican party was defeated in
1912 because the men in control had
failed to read the signs of the times
Much has happened since then; but every
event has served to prove with cumula-
tive effect that the men who led the
party to defeat then were fatally wrong
The war has developed new issues and
it has forced the reshaping of the old
issues in new form The nation has
decided. after an experience with Demo-
cratic leadership in Congress, that it
prefers to trust itself to the Republicans
for the next two years. 1t has assumed
that they have profted by the lessons of
adversity and that they will do now the
things which they ought to have done
years ago.
The first test of the party will come in
the election of a Speaker. That officer
does not now exercise the power which
he did in the days when Cannon welded
the gavel but he is still potent agent
of the majority. The broadest-minded
man in the House should be selected for
the post. He must be man in sympa-
thy with the aspirations of all social
groups, and not merely a representative
of class interests. He must think ma
tionally and not sectionally. He must
be as willing to serve the laboring man
as the big manufacturer. He must con-
slider the interests of the consumer as
we'll as of the producer. He must have
comprehensive vision of the part which
America must play, whether it will or
not, in reshaping the world, now that
war has put old customs and old insti-
tutions in solution ready to be remade
in accordance with the spirit of democ
racy and human brotherhood. He must
be an American first, believing in the
part which nations must play in the
world, and whatever of the spirit of
internationalism he may harbor in his
thinking must be subordinated to nation
alism.
Every American is wiser and humber
than he was four years ago. So we are
confident that the Republican congress
sional leaders are also humber as we'll
as wiser. If we do not mistake their
purposes, they will attempt so to organ
ize the House as to make its Speaker
and committee charmen representative
of the new spirit of America. They will
be responsive to the demand for such
social legislation as is within their con-
stitutional power. They will pass tariff
| laws intended to develop every industry
in the country that can be benefited by
| them. And their internal tax laws will
treat all classes with justice, without
any provisions intended to punish big
business enterprises for the crime of big
ness. They will deal with the question
of Government ownership of the rail-
roads and the telegraph and telephone
lines on its merits and not for the pur-
pose of destroying great corporations
And they will deal with the rehabilta-
tion of the merchant marine with sound
business sense enlightened by the events
of the recent past.
In view of the multiplicity and magni-
tlde of the questions with which the
Sixty-sixth Congress must deal, the self
seekers looking for notoriety are ex-
pected 81 keep themselves in the back
ground and to refrain from making diff
cult the task of selecting the leaders
from among those with the minds of
statesmen infiamed with burning desire
to serve their country and, through it,
the world. p,
1t is not time for factionalism or
narrow partisanship. Nor is it a time
when there should be any toleration for
the old practice of promoting men to
high posts merely because they have
served in the House a few more years
than some abler men.
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