Arizona republican., 1918-07-26
FRIDAY MORNING, JULY 26, 1918
Let's Get This Thing Straight.

Now that are at the beginning of a campaign the election of various officers constabes, ernor. justices of the peace and state and county officials will heas much the subject of the great world We may be told that if care taken in the selection of true and tried patriot for constable in the precinct of Podunk the whole world will come tumbng about our ears and democ- racy will have struggled in vain against absolutism.
 Speakers who proceed in this manner do so upon the assumption That their audiences composed of fools and Gnoramuses We trust that audiences in stead of sitting quietly under this kind of oratory will manifest their resentment at such insults to their intelligence, that candidates and public speakers may be confined to those issues of the campaign which affect Arizona and which Arizona affect.
 We are led into these observations by the re- marks of speakers democratic meeting the other night in which than inference given that this is democratic war with only the wisdom and the patriotism of the democratic party behind it: that certain Instructions had been thrown in the way of the democratic party by designing republicans
 It seemed to then that it would be well to get the record of the parties with respect to the straight before the people and to keep it straight throughout the campaign.
 We cannot in country whose people are so unanimously in favor of a righteous war, say that either of the two great parties is wanting in patriot ism Neither would it be just for to charge either of the great parties with the faults and mistakes with reference to the war; of it's representatives in congress- If permitted to do that it would be shown by the record that the republican is the party by very margin and the democratic party the anti-war party by shade.
 There were two great war measures before con- gross. Without their enactment we could not have gone to war. One the senate joint resolution
 
 the bill authorizing the president temporarily increase the military establishment of the United States-that is, the seective service measure The administration proposed both these measures
 Those of our readers who followed the newspaper accounts of the debates upon them will recall that both were advocated by the leading republicans of both houses and that both were opposed by many of the leading democrats, including the speaker and the chairman of the ways and means committee of the house.
 The vote on the measures constitutes the only party record have. There were six votes cast in the senate against the resolution Three of them were republican and three of them democratic. But there four pairs and all the paired senators were democrats that if all these senators had been and voted there would have been seven demo- cratic votes against the resolution and three repub- can votes. In the house fifty votes against the resolution about equally divided between the two parties.
 In the senate eight votes were cast against the selectve draft law; five of them were democratic votes and three of them republican votes In the house twenty-four votes against the bill fourteen democrats, eight republicans, one socialist and one prohibition democrat.
 In justice to both parties should be pointed out that the votes these questions were sectional rather than party There is reflection upon the of he voted against the The bulk of the opposi- ton came from the west and the south where the situation less acute than the north and east whence the administrations chief support came The west and the south could not at first understand the inevitableness or the seriousness of the So we had the democratic delegation from Missouri and the republican delegation from Wisconsin voting almost sodly against the resolution for declaration of a state of war
 Now, as to the wisdom and vigor with which the war has been conducted:
 Our first year of hesitation vaclation laundering and backing. Republicans that is some republicans have attempted to make capital of that We do not suppose would have done better the first year if the administration had been republican
 We knew that something wrong and critics in and out of congress rather roughly pointed out the mistakes of the administration with the result that they have been amended we are performing our part in the war now. But who is performing it at home and abroad? The administration and the department doing all they ought do and no more only giving authorization to competent directors to do the things they find necessary to be done These directors private citizens, some democrats most of them republicans, but none of them acting now as party men-all Americans. As to the work abroad we have nothing to do with that. We have placed our forces and our munitions wholly at the disposal of General Foch
 Something should be said though for the patriotic and lately intelligent but always well meaning effort of the American people At first want of leader