The Evening Missourian. [volume] (Columbia, Mo.) 1917-1920, 1918-08-21
THE PRESIDENT AND CONGRESS

of a representative of the people il
Congress. The reason he urges in
this, as in other instances, in his fe'
licitOus English, is that the Senator
in question has not supported the Ad-
ministratiOn. He goes even farther
with Senator Vardaman and declares
that if the voters of Mississippi re-
turn him TO the Senate they will, in
effect, have pronounced a verdict OF
condemnation upon the Administra-
ton.
President Wilson's thus seeking TO
dictate the choice of the people is
viewed differentlS by different sup
porters OF the Administration. The
Springfield, Massachusetts Republican
thus commends him:
But there is no reason why the
president should not seek openly to
have senators elected who would sup
port his proclaimed policies. Espec-
tally when the war comes to an end,
he will need friends and sympathiZers
in the Senate, if his ideas of world
peace are to be given a chance to ma
terialize. A leader must have sup
porters if he is to accomplish any
thing, and for the president there is
no body like the Senate in which to
have his supporters placed. 1t matters
less what political party they belong
to than that they can be trusted not
to balk his efforts to give reality to
the higher war aims for which he has
declared we are fighting and with
which the rest of the world has al |
ready associated the American peo-
pie"
The New York Evening Post makes
this comment:
He seems to desire to set up in
Congress a body analogous to those
members Of Parliament in the time OF
George III who were known as "the
Kings friends" 1t is not simply pun
ishment for the past that the Presi-
dent appears to have in mind. He
would erect a kind of moral terror
ism for the future. If a member of
the next Congress ventures to oppose
the Presidents known wishes, he will
live with sword over his head. That
is, he will be in danger of a Presiden-
tial notification that he ought not to
be chosen for another term. This lat
est evidence of President Wilson's
masterful ways may be thought of
as an incident of his vast war-powers.
But it will appear disquieting and dan
gerOus to sober-minded Americans
stepped in the spirit of our past.
The Evening Post has no love for
Senator Vardaman. 1t believed him
unfit to be elected originally, and
would like to see him defeated now.
But the defeat ought to be the free
act Qf the Mississippi electorate, not
the dictate of the President"
The New York World, almost a
sycophantic supporter of President
says:
I'VE admit that it is difficult to de-
termine what the course of a Presi-
dent should be in such circumstances
whether he ought to remain out
wardly Indifferent to the reelection of
a Senator who, in such critical times
rs these, may be relied on to obstruct
he war policies of the Government,
Or whether he should carry the issue
straight to the voters. President Will
son has chosen the direct course and
assumed all the responsibility for it.
If he wins, we are bound to admit
hat the Democratic representation in
he next Congress will be greatly i'm
proved. But if he loses, he will en-
counter new embarrassments which
will continue to the end of his Ad-
and which may prove
worse than the evils that he is now
enduring. 1t is a policy in which
success is its own vindication and
allure its own condemnation"
In the meantime, the voters of the
first Alabama District renominated
Huddleston by a vote
# double the combined vote of his
wo opponents, and despite President
Wilson's letter in which he declared
'Ir. Huddleston's record proved him
n every way an opponent of the Ad-