The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1919-11-29
HI RESPONSIBILITY

THE RESPONSIBILITY
peace treaty, is dead. And the statesman who appealed to us
for reelection because he had kept us out of war, and then
appealed again for a vote of confidence to help him win the
war he had kept us out of, has now kept us out OF peace.
1t is doubtful if any. statesman i'm modern history has ever
had placed before him an opportunity for greater service to
the world; an opportunity for a more exalted place III history
than Mr.. Wilson found awaiting him at the close of thei
worlds greatest war. There vas an almost universal cry for
some arrangement between civilized nations that would fore
sIall a recurrence of the holocaust of horrors that had ter
rorized humanity for four long years. But unfortunately for
America, unfortunately for civilization, unfortunately for Mr..
Wilson himself, the man in position to render the greatest
service in this field was afflicted with the fatal handicap OF a
personal ambition or some other human quality that led him
apart from his fellow men, that barred from his councils and
even from intimate association those who were by nature and
training and by position necessary to his success.
4 4 =
When our forefathers planned the government that be-
came in little more than a century the greatest the world had
known they proceeded, with reference to other governments
laid on other lines, on this theory, aa later expressed by Alex
ander Hamilton:
The history Of human conduct does not warrant that
exalted opinion o human virtue which would make it wise n a
nation to commit interests of 80 delicate and momentous a kind
a those which concern its intercourse with the rest of the
world. to the sole disposal of a magistrate created n crcum-
stanced as would be a president of the United States. 1t must,
indeed. be clear, to a demonstration, that the joint possession
of the power in question by the president and senate would
afford a greater prospect of security than the separate pos
session of it by either of them A
But Mr.. Wilson, although having sought The presidency,
was evidently not willing to submit to this doctrine. He had
already, in his previous writings, pointed out how the presi-
dent might circumvent this feature of the constitution. He had
said:
His only power of compelling compliance o n the part of
the senate lies in his initiative in negotiation which affords him
a chance to get the country into such scrapes, sc pleuged. in the
view of the world, to certain courses of action that the senate
hesitates to bring about the ppearance Of dishonor which
would follow a refusal to ratify rash promises or to support
the indiscreet threats of the department of state.
And again:
Our government differs from the other governments of the
world. Other executives lead; ~ executives obey.
In this he disregarded the fact that the "other executives
lead only so long as they "obey, in democratic governments.
The "other executives" are without definite tenure Of office.
They are chosen by the legislative branch Of the government
and their tenure of office depends upon their successful lead
crship and may be terminated at any moment by the very body
that called them to leadership. If the system which Mr.
Wilson seems most to approve had been in force in this coun-
Try he would have retired from office last November, and IL
not voluntarily then another would have been chosen in his
place long before he appointed himself as sole peace com
missioner. with a legion of experts not three OF whom can
be named off hand by any citizen of Nevada.
Other presidents have been able to work successfully andI
tremendously with the legislative branch of The governments.
Washington did ii: Lincoln did it; Grant did it; Mckinley did
il; even ~Old Hickory did it.
In contrast with Mr.. Wilson'S course let us recall that
when the Spanish-American war was declared one of Nc
kinleys first acts was to call to his aid and appoint to con
spicuous positions two of the men who had fought him most
Utterly and most persistently through the years of his previous
public Seryice-General Joe Wheeler and General FitZhugh
Lee. He did it as Lincoln. a republican. in the civil war, had
called to his aid the biggest democrat in the north, Edwin M.
Stanton, and made him secretary of war, and placed at his
cabinet table at least two other democrats, Gideon Wells and
Hugh Mccullough. When the Spanish-American war was
flying the senate, a body equally responsible with him to the
people, equally responsible under their oath of office for the
results of the treaty-instead of defying the partner the people
had given him he invited its cooperation. He chose a ma
mittee of the senate, including the leading democratic mem
Der of that committee. The others We're his secretary of state