Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-10-25

They occur in the most critical peri
cd our country has ever faced or is
likely to face in our time. If you
have approved of my leadership and
wish me to continue to be your un-
embarrassed spokesman in affairs at
home and abroad, I earnestly beg
that you will express yourselves un-
mistakably to that effect by return
ing a Democratic majority to both
the Senate and House of Represent
atives.
Il am your servant and will ac-
cept your judgment without cavil,
but my power to administer the great
trust assigned ME by the Constitu-
tion would be seriously impaired
should your judgment be adverse,
and l must frankly tell you so be-
cause so many critical issues depend
upon your verdict. No scruple of
taste must in grim times like these
be allowed to stand in the way of
speaking the plain truth.
Il have no thought OF suggesting
that any political party is paramount
in matters of patriotism. l feel too
deeply the sacrifices which have been
made in this war by all our citizens
irrespective of party affiliations 10
harbor such an idea l mean only
that the difficulties and delicacies- of
our present task are of a sort that
makes it imperatively necessary that
the nation should give it's undivided
support to the Government under a
unified leadership and that Repub-
lican Congress would divide the
leadership.
THE leaders of the minority in
the present Congress have unques-
tionably been pro-war, but they have
been anti-administration. At almost
every turn since we entered the war
they have sought to take the choice
of policy and the conduct of the war
out of my hands and put it under the
control of instrumentalities of their
own choosing.
This is no time, either, for di-
vided council or for divided leader
ship. Unity of command is as neces-
sary now in civil action as it is upon
the field of battle. If the control
of the House and the Senate should
be taken away from the party now
in power, an opposing majority could
assume control of legislation and
oblige all action to be taken amidst
contest and obstruction.
'"The return of a Republican ma
jority to either-bouse of the Con-
gress would, moneover, be inter-
pretative on the other side of. the
water as a reputation of my lead
ership. Spokesman of the Republi-
can party are urging you to elect a
Republican Congress in order to
back up and support the President,
but even if they should in this i'm
al
this side of the water, they would
! impose on no one on the other side,
1t is we'll understood there as well
as here that the Republican leaders
desire not so much to support the
| President as to control him.
THE peoples of the Allied coun-
tries 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 Con-
gress a majority controlled by those
who are not in fact in sympathy
with the attitude and action of the
administration!
Employs Crisis as Argument
ct need not tell you, my fellow
countrymen. that / am asking your
support not for my own sake or
for the sake of political party, but
for the sake of the nation itself in
order that it's inward unity Of pur-
pose may be evident to all the world.
In ordinary times l would not feel
at liberty to make such an appeal
to you. In ordinary times divided
counsels can be endured without
| marina ant hurt In The country But
these are not ordinary times.
"If in these critical days it is your
wish to sustain me with undivided
minds, I beg that YOU will say so in
a way which 1t will not be possible
to misunderstood either here al
! homo or among our associates on the
lcther edo nf the sea. ] submit my
difficu,ti~s and my hopes to you.
s'WOODROW WILSON,"