New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-04-05
Politics Be Damned

are also reserved
Politics Be Damned
Since Monday we have been hearing
that The Tribune is out for Roosevelt in
1920.
One of our most disappointed friends
upbraids us for making an exhibition of
"amateur journalism" because, he says,
ct commits The Tribune to an individ-
ual and precludes all strategy and au-
thority" Then he adds: clad you con-
suited Theodore he would have begged
you to refrain"
Our critics political shrewdness en-
ables him to deduce an interesting truth,
namely, that Theodore was not consult
ed. The rest he misunderstands. He
is thinking in terms of political strategy.
We were not thinking in those terms at
all. We were thinking only of the fine
and imperative Americanism delineated
in Colonel Roosevelt's Portland speech.
The caption of our unpolitical edi-
torial was "The Leader of American
ISM" That referred to Roosevelt. We
said that he would be the Republican
candidate for President in 1920 because
he was the only man who could restore
the party's prestige and make 1t again
an instrument of militant Americanism.
We made that statement impulsively,
under the spell of our enthusiasm for
the Portland speech. Our only emotion
on reviewing it is to regret that the ne
cessity for making it exists.
We wish it were untrue.
We wish we could find one hundred
reasons for withdrawing it and that
each reason were a man capable of re-
storing the Republican party as an in
strument of militant Americanism.
But where are such reasons?
If they are present among us they
are silent. This is no time for silence.
1t may be that they are silent for
political reasons. But this is no time
for politics.
The Tribune is not out for Roosevelt
politically. 1t is for his Americanism
n so h. -
sound. We hear no other sound like it
in the Republican party.
The trouble with the Republican party
is that it is a political party. It hopes
to be restored to power and prestige by
the exercise of its inherited political sa-
gacity in some situation that shall be
OPPORTUNITY created. But party that
has fallen by politics may not be lifted
up again by politics alone. A party to
be reborn needs a message and prophet.
A party that is afraid cannot be reborn
at all.
What is the Republican party's mes
sage and where is it's prophet?
It's seeming condition Of either
Roosevelt or nothing is the price the Re-
publican party pays for it's great sin.
In 1916 it played safe politics with
divine opportunity.
It was afraid to embrace righteous,
inevitable war.
1t was cautious.
It chose a safe course.
1t was so safe that the pro-German
vote adhered to it's candidates whether
they wished it or not.
If Mr.. Hughes alone had had the reck-
less courage to seize that opportunity
by the horns he might have won; but if
nevertheless he had lost it would have
been the kind of failure in which victory
waits, and the position of his party to-
day would be very different.
SO far as we can see, the Republican
party is still cautious, political and i'm
potent.
The Democratic National Committee
has issued statement on the Wisconsin
election saying that Lenroot won by
"courting the La Toilette and pro-Ger-
man vote within the Republican ranks"
We <hsuL +hiu Ia unfair IN T .rrnr+ o~<,