The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1918-10-29
Partisan Appeal by the
President

~ iCiioW COunt AhCh. L AC Yin
gressional elections are at hand. They
occur in the most critical period our
country has ever faced or is likely tol
face in our time. II you have approx
ed of my leadership and wish me to-
continue to be your unembarrassed
spokesman in affairs at home and
abroad, earnestly beg that you will
express yourself Enthusiastically to that
effect by returning a Democratic ma
jority to both the Senate and House OF
Representatives.
am your servant and will accept
your judgment without cavil, but my
power to administer the great trust as
signed me by the Constitution would
be seriously impaired should your
judgment be adverse, and / must
frankly tell you SO because SO many
critical issues depend upon your ven
dict. No scruple of taste must in grim
tines like these be allowed TO stand in
the way of speaking the plain truth.
have no thought of suggesting that
any political party is paramount in
matters OF patriotism. feel too deep
ly the sacrifices which have been made
in this war by all our citizens, prospect
i've of party affiliations, to harbor such
an idea. mean only that the diff
cilties and delicacies of our present
task are of sort that makes it impera-
lively necessary that the nation should
give its undivided support to the Gov
eminent under unified leadership
and that Republican Congress would
divide the leadership.
The leaders of the minority in the
present Congress have PROFESSIONALLY
been pro-war, but they have been anti
administration. At almost every turn
since we entered the war they have
tsought to take the choice of policy and
fthe conduct OF the war out of my
hands and put it under the control Of
instrumentalities OF their own choos-
ling.
i This is no time either for divided
council or for divided leadership. Unity
of command 10 necessary now in civil
action, as it is upon the field of battle.
II the control of the House and the
Senate should be taken away from the
party now in power, an opposing ma
liority could assume control OF legisIa-
ton and oblige all action to be taken
amidst contest and obstruction.
Il The return of Republican majority
to either house of the Congress would,
moreover, be interpretative on the
other side of the water as a reputation
of my leadership. Spokesman of the
Republican party are urging you to
elect Republican Congress in order to
back up and support the President,
but even If they should, in this, i'm.
Ipose upon some creduIous voters on
this side of the water, they would i'm
pose on no one on the other side. 1t is
well understood there, as we'll as here,
that the Republican leaders desire not
SO much to support the President as to
control him.
| The peoples Of the Allied countries,
with whom we are associated against
Germany, are quite familiar with the
Significance Of elections. They would
find it very difficult to believe that the
voters OF the United States had chosen
to support their President by electing
to the Congress majority controlled
by those who are not, in fact, in sym.
pathy with the attitude and action of
the administration.
need not tell you, my fellow coun-
trymen, that / am asking your sup
| port not for my own sake or for the
sake of political party, but for the
sake of the nation itself, in order that
its inward unity of purpose may be
evident to all the world. In ordinary
times, divided counsels can be endured
without permanent hurt to the ceun-
try. But these are not ordinary times,
II in these critical days. it is your
wish to sustain me with undivided
minds, beg that you will say SO in a
way which it will not be possible to
misunderstood, either here, at home or
among our associates on the other side
Of the sea. 1 submit my difficulties
and my hopes to you.
WOODROW WILSON.