Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-10-26
POLITICS Is RECoNvENEDl
Mr.. WILSON IN THE CHAIR
The Presidents Statement Unbridles the
Mouth Of Partisan Rancor At the Most

AS true admrer Of President Wilson
ought to mourn the blunder of Judgment
| which led him to issue his amazing
appeal to the public for the election OF
| Democratic Congress. We say regard
| less of party lines advisedly and with
purpose of accent because until yester-
day there were hundreds Of thousands
yes millions--of Republicans as well as
| Democrats who had been schooling them
| selves to think constantly of the nations
! Chief Executive as the first citizen OF
! America and not as the first Democrat.
| But in the face of this bitterly partisan,
| periously close to demagogic, denuncia-
tion of those representatives sent to Con-
gress by Republican majorities, they
must now perforce accept the President
in the light he pictures himself-as the
leader of the Democratic party commits
stoned to be the chief factionalist Office
holder of the nation. 1t is not a becom-
ing or gracious posture.
If there was one act more calculated
to open the Pandora's box of factional-
ism at this critical time in the affairs
of the country and the world. it is hard
to conceive it. Politics, which the Presi-
dent himself solemnly adjourned for the
duration of the war last spring, is now
reconvened with all the folly and bias
that must follow in its train, and the
presiding politician is none other than
Mr.. Wilson, whose every sentence in
yesterdays deplorable statement seemed
jealously intended to preserve his
right to WELD the gavel. Henceforth,
even against the better counsels of
patriotic moderation and prudence. the
pettiest political huckster in the ranks
of either major party will feel licensed
to blate and blow his rancor, no longer
afraid of that decent sense of restraint
which the gravity of the larger national
and international crises has heretofore
invoked He will be unafraid because
the President himself has indulged in
and invited partisan controversy.
Admitting that Mr.. Wilson has had
some provocation; admitting that Colonel
Roosevelt and others have perhaps
flagrantly disregarded time, taste and
occasion, and that recently there has
been a growing tendency on the Repub-
lcan side to criticize the Administration
more sharply than last May when poll
tics was adjourned in that memorable
address to Congress, there surely should
have been nothing serious enough to dis
turb his serenity He has suffered not a
hundredth part of the harassing to which
the Democratic party subjected President
Lincoln during the Civil War, when as
body it declared the effort to preserve
the Union by force of arms failure
and demanded peace at any price. More
over, not all Of the criticism has been
Republican. 1t seems as if. Mr.. Wilson
is impatient and intoerant of criticism.
Especially is this true if it comes from
anybody unfortunate enough in his eyes
to be Republican.
Not long ago the President called it
"the peoples war;" but his statement
gives it the aspect of an exclusive, per-
sonally conducted Democratic party en-
terprise, thereby challenging Republican
hostility and attack. Already the Re-
publican congressional leaders and Mr.
Taft have made sharp but dignifed re-
joinder, conveying thoroughly we'll
merted rebuke.
Examination Of yesterdays statement
must be dscouraging to those Ameri-
cans--not primarily either Republicans
or Democrats-who are proud of the
heights to which the President has lifted
the aims of this war and who are not
blinded by prejudice to the very many
virtues and superb abilities which he
has brought to bear upon the problems
of American diplomacy. In substance
he says that unless Democratic majori-
ties are preserved in the Senate and
House the people of Europe, which is all
inclusive, will believe that his leadership
has been repudiated. That is what the
little harbingers of Democratic campaign
funds have been saying recently-less
boldly and more evasivefy than he
against the indignant protest 6f hun
dreds of thousands of Republican buyers
of Liberty Bonds and devoted Republi-
can workers in the cause Of the war. We
have ignored such cant and hypocrisy
among these professional jobhunters and
jobholders because they did not seem
worthy of refutation. But it is amazing
to find Mr.. Wilson echoing and enlarg-
ing upon their babble in formal pronun-
ciamento to the nation. The only possi-
BILE explanation must be that in an un-
guarded or irritated moment he has been
misled into adopting this falsehood by
certain of those self-seeking counselors
who are ever at the elbow of a great
man.
How could Europe believe that the