The labor world., 1918-04-27
WANTS.ELECTI0NS:
TO Be. FOUGHT ON
DOMINANT ISSUES
New Republic Says Exploiting
Of Loyalty IS Betrayhg
Democracy.

NEW YORK, April 25.-Several
voices have been raised recently in
favor Of following in this country the
example set by France anf Great Brit
ain and omitting the approaching con-
gressional elections, declares The New
Republic. They should have remem-
bered the speech made by President
Lincoln to the Republica- clubs of the
District of Columbia soon after his
reelection in the fall of 1854.
THE election was necessity. We
can not have free government with
out elections, and if a rebellion could
force us to undergo or postpone ma
tional election it might fairly claim to
have already conquered and ruined us.
The strife of the election is but hu-
man nature practically applied to the
facts of the case.'
He considered the holding of the
election and its results a victorious
answer to the grave question whether
any government not too strong for
the liberty of it's people can be strong
enough to maintain it's own existence
in great emergencies"
Bitter Contest Coming.
The congressional election, will of
course, take place, but it is uncertain
how real an election it will be. The
Republican and Democratic parties
have been hesitating whether or not
they will engage in contest. Given
the existing state Of facts the particu-
larly human people who are running
the Democratic and Republican
parties are headed for lively and
perhaps in the end bitter contest.
The course of the recent Wisconsin
election registers rising tide of par
tisan controversy and recrimination
which is by way of overwhelming the
conscientious objectors to any aban-
donment of the party truce.
The particular election which is
now hanging over the country threat
ems to degenerate into factiOus quar-
rel between two groups of politicians,
each of which will try to prove either
by criticizing the administration or by
refraining from criticizing it the su-
periority of their brand of patriotism.
The resulting quarrel will be of
little service to the American people,
because it will consist of a competi-
tion for official power on the part of
politicians who wish to get themselves
elected unhampered by embarrassing
promises as to the way in which the
power will be eventually used. The
two competing parties will both claim
to represent absolute, undiluted, 100
per cent American patriotism.
Parties Exploit Loyalty.
On the basis of this claim they will
condemn all less vociferous patriots
as suspects, and they will consider
themselves entitled to ignore and sup
press all those really significant ques-
lions about future American national
and International policy. which a con-
test between two vital political parties
would emphasize and illuminate rather
than conceal.
The party politicians will try to
dodge such difficult questions because
they wish to adjust their course to the
wind and can not guess how the wind
will be blowing. They much prefer
to exploit empty professions of 10y
atty rather than to furnish their pa
triotic mansion with a definite mean
ing and an estimable content. But
in this respect they betray the inter-
ests of the democracy whose best
method Of exercising wholesome con-
troll over it's rulers is to force them to
declare how they will use the power
confided to them.
In as much as there is no way of
avoiding an election next fall, public
opinion should do it's utmost to pre-
vent it from becoming a sham elec-