New-York tribune., 1918-10-27
Supporting the President

= Supporting the President
The Presidents appeal to his fellow
countrymen to Sustain me with und-
vlded minds" puts The Tribune upon i'm
pulse to say why it has supported the
Administration, wherein it has, and whv
1t has been guilty of what seems to Mr.
Wilson the great sin of being some of
the time ''anti-Administraton
During the first year of our partc-
patton in the war The Tribune was per-
haps the Administrations most unspar-
ing critic among newspapers We pub
lished the distressing news of delay and
mlsmanagement and confusion We did
1T without the slightest enthusiasm for
~- embarrassing a Democratic government.
The conditions we complained of were
very bad, but that was not the whole
0 story. Though they had been very much
worse we might have felt that publicity
would do more harm than good What
: had to be overcome was the complacent-
mlndedness of the government. Only
publicity could do that, and it had to be
hostile publicity, against high odds, for
the government was continually saying
that the great cause was in efficient
hands and moving swiftly We knew
better
Many we're the journeys we made to
Washington to plead for such obvious
things as that the industrial side of war
should be transferred from the control
of bureau chiefs to the hands of the men
accustomed to think and deal in magni-
tudes of production; that shipbuilder
should be called in to build ships; that
all raw materials should be put under
the arbitrary jurisdiction of a munitions
minister, and that the resources of the
country should be converted headlong to
programme of force 1t was always a
truitless errand. Each time we returned
IN despair and went on with the pub
lefty.
We were lynched for it, Mr. Creel
q hailed us before what he rhctoricallv
called the moral firing squad of public
opinion. He said The Tribune and Colo
mel Roosevelt and other critics were
giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
From his point of view that may have
seemed true. Criticism of our war pro-
gramme was likely to be appreciated by
~ the enemy, though not because it was
n criticism, as Mr.. Creel supposed, but be-
cause the conditions existed He missed
the point entirely
iss What we were all complaining of was
not so much the conditions as the atti-
tude of the government toward them.
what we found at Washington again and
again was that the intellectual mind as
1t described its own processes was
playing over the stuation," unable to
nix itself in any direction-least of all in
ehe direction OF force alone There is no
secret about this. Mr. Baker was verv
frank IN his testimony before the Mill
tary Affairs Committee of the Senate.
FOR long time it had been debated, he
SAID, whether this country's participa
tlon IN the war should be military or in
dustrial.
Meanwhile the force of frightfulness
appeared to be winning.
In the thirteenth month of our nar-
ticipation The Tribunes attacks on the
war programme ceased. We began to
support the President" if that is what
1T shall be called. Many of our friends
noticed it and wondered Some THOUGHT
81 our policy had changed Some. perhaps
suspected that the experience of being
tynched by the Committee on Public In
formation had filled us with wholesome
tear. Many Of our Republican friends
were disappointed, and their disappoint-
'ment increased as time after time we re-
fused to take up partisan, political and
economic controversies against the Ad
ministration. We took the ground that
IN our opinion all quarrels that could
wait should be deferred For while
we believe, 1t was suspected that we had
ceased to be a Republican newspaper
The explanation of what happened is
both simple and dramatic. On or about
April l we made another Journey
to Washington. The atmosphere had
changed 1t was vibrant with certain
expectancy, as of something that was
about to take place in dynamic man
ner. We went to our most helpful friend
IN court one who knew everything. and
asked if anything had happened He
SAID: Something is going to happen.
The President is in the war He is in it
with both fists. He says it is of no use
to so on hoping and talking. There is
nothing for il but To take il AZ a hi. ioh