Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-08-18

Cr1m1ndLlnB ClLlZeIlSulp III AAS
behalf. that I have yielded to
growing impulse within me
to commit partially to paper
my convictions as to the real
merits of the situation:-
One-I have usually voted the Re-
publican ticket. l did not in either
election vote for Mr.. Wilson. But
1 have no partisan bias which would
prevent me from giving the most
loyal support to a Democratic Presi-
dent. When Mr.. Wilson was first
declared elected, L joined in the
most unreserved hope and conf
dence that he would prove both
good and a great President. My
habitual mood as a citizen is to de-
sire the ability to admire, to hold
the greatest respect for and conf
dence in, the chief magistrate of the
Republic. be he Republican or DEM
ocrat.
Two-I speak as an individual
citizen and of the personal impress
sions that have come to me as such.
The President had not gone far in
mitments he began sadly to dissipate
my best hopes for and ideals of him.
He surprised me by revealing both
narrow partisan and sectional ob-
sessions concerning his functions as
President. l think it fitting, so far
as may be, that the Presidents Caol-
net should represent distributlNely
the most important sections OF the
Nation. do not believe, for IN
stance, that the South, representing
but a marked minority of both the
population and the vast mercantile
and industrial interests of the Ma
ton, should furnish a decisive ma
jority of the Presidents official ad-
visers. For a President to form
sectional Cabinet would impress me
as neither just, patriotic, nor states
manlike. The President, by what
ever party elected. may not forget
that he fails in highest duty If he
fails representatively and equitably
to serve all citizens and all sections
of the Nation. Mr.. Wilson seems
never to have been able to break
away from partisan bondage.
Comparatively early in his first term
in a noted speech at Indianapolis, he
INDUCED the astounding and afro
cious taste, as President of the Re-
public. of substantially declaring
that the Democratic party was the
only one in the Nation possessed of
either craftsmanship or good sense.
This incident in the measure in
which it is to be accepted as an ex-
ponent of the man is provocative of
comment It is at least suggestive
of a lack of breadth and statesman
ship which ought invariably to be-
long to the Presidential office. But
much later, and apparently with no
growth or improvement in his ideals,
Mr.. Wilson, exalting his own per-
sonal sovereignty and policies as
paramount to all other interests,
made his notorious appeal to the
country for the election of a parti-
san Congress. He seems unable to
rise above the plane of the partisan
leader.
Three-It is doubtful whether any
ruler of a great Nation, and in a
world-crisis, ever manifested more
vacillating, indecisive, and unde-
pendable policy than is set forth in
Mr.. Wilson's official record in con-
nection with the world-war. When
the catclysm broke which was to lift
nations from their foundations, it
was all to him a matter of such re-
moteness as to be of little practical
concern to America. We were ad-
vised to cultivate the spirit of abso-
lutte neutrality, even in our very
thoughts. We were a signatory ma
tion to the inviolability of Belgium.
But when Germany, like a blood
lusting and remorseless monster,
drove her mailed heel into the very
breast of PROSTATE Belgium, the
President of the worlds greatest re-
public uttered no word of official
protest. His answer should have
been as impressive as a million bay
onets cleaning in the sunlight.
When the Lusitania was torpedoed,
sending scores of American citizens
to ocean graves, the matter was
handled from Washington in a way
to confirm in the German mind the
assumption on which it had already
proceeded, that we were a Nation of
dared to lay an assassin's knife at
cravens and of towards. 1t was at
a time when braggart bully had
the very throat of our national honor
that our President was voicing the
pusillanim sophism that we were
a Nation too proud to fight" 1t
was this spineless attitude in those
world-trying days that confirmed,
perhaps more than anything else,
the suspicion abroad, and in other
lands than in Germany, that Amer
lea could be insulted and bullied to
the limit without serious danger of
incurring the counter-stroke of her
vengeful wrath.
Eour.-I have never been able to
experience any admiration of Mr..
Wilson's masque during the cam
paign for his second election. How
ever much we were smarting under
a sense of duty unperformed, under
the lash of moral condemnation for
not coming with our armed might
to the rescue of world-im periled
liberties, yet up to the time of this
election we were not committed to
active participation in the war. 1t
must be admitted that the national
mind was not yet clarified as to the
issues involved, it did not clearly re-
alize that the conflagration was so
frightful and menacing that unless
America should come to the rescue
the liberties of the world might be
consumed. 1t is also to be recog-
nized that there was a wide domes-
tic sentiment in the Nation averse
TO our participation in the war.
Mothers, wives, sweethearts. yield
ing to a natural feeling not yet en-
lightened and fortified by a clear
sense of duty shrank we'll night uni
versally from the menacing horrors
of the conflict. Out of this mood
there was easily coined the shib-
boleth which carried immense senti-
mental effect-"He kept us out of
war" In the narrow balancing of
forces, this sentiment was sufficient
to carry Mr.. Wilson's election. And