The Cordova daily times. [volume] (Cordova, Alaska) 1914-1947, 1918-02-09
LODGE: DISSECTS
MOUTHINCS Of
GUMSHOE BILL
(From the answer of Senator Lodge of
Massachusetts to the speech of SEN
Gtnnn

| NFFOm the answer or senator Lodge of
Massachusetts to the speech of SEN
ator Stone)
l. Mr. President, nothing during this
war has been so profoundly gratifying
to me as the fact that since last April
there have been no political lines
drawn in the congress OF the United
States. There have been until today
no political speeches which have
heard. There has been no political
motive. Both branches have labored
! together with the common desire to
prosecute the war to quickest concIus-
ion.
Mr.. President, if there has been
partisanship anywhere since the war
began it has not been in the con-
! gress of the United States. That has
been pretty obvious to everybody, to
the most casual looker-on elsewhere.
While we were organizing all the in
! dustries and all the resources of the
| United States, as we needed to do in
order to win this war, it has seemed
! to me at times as if it might be we'll
! to organize and use all the ability of
the country. The parties of this coun.
try are pretty evenly divided, and to
confine one party to the right to give
their lives, their sons, their brothers,
| their husbands to the armies and
naVies seems to me not altogether
best. | think it would have been bet
| ter if they had been more largely call
ed, and that we needed all that ability
in the general service of the United
States.
Il have found no fault, however.
with the attitude. The only fault 7
have ever found is that the admins
tration failed to take the best from its
own party. There has been a great
I admiration evidenced for what have
been called the dwellers in the twi-
light zone; a great desire to appoint
men, few in number who have wan
dered from one party to another until
! some irreverent people have referred
to them as the mavericks of politics
They have been taken wherever poss-
ible and without regard, so far as one
can see, to anything except their some
what varied political record, and put
in places of great Importance. I have
observed also that those wanderers
generally permit themselves to be-
branded by some one who is able to
admit them to green pastures and to
comfortable stalls
| THE fault | find is in not calling
out the best ability in the Democratic
party, if it must be confined to half
the country. There are too many men
eXerting great powers at this moment
vested with great authority, who seem
to the observer to have nothing to,
| commend them except their insignifi-
! canoe, which makes them solely de-
pendent on the executive pleasure
My criticism has never run on party
lines, and does not now
| AS to the investigation being car
ried on by the committee on military
l'affairs, in my humble opinion no great
er service has ever been rendered to
| the country by any committee of con-
gress than that committee has rem
dered in the last six weeks. Inyesti-
cations censured! Is this congress to
stand by in silence while blunders and
| delays and needless losses go pouring
past and to be accused of treason if
it tries to make conditions better?
When you speak of the effect of
these Investigations, what do you
think was the effect on our allies and
our enemies alike when this govern
ment, not yet fully immersed in war,
| deliberately closed down for five DAYS
all the industries of the country? What
! impression do you think will be Civ.
en- by that act? What will be the inn
preston upon the German mind when
they read of that order of the fuel
administration?
"The senator has attacked Colonel
Roosevelt for criticising the Presi-
dent. He supported the President, at
least, in trying to have the merchant.
men armed and in the declaration of
war He is supporting the war inI
| every way he can His four sons are
all in the war. Three are on the Elan
ders front at this moment. A disloy
al man does not make such sacrifices
as that