Omaha daily bee., 1919-02-14
While Wilson Is Array
philadelnhia Public Ledper.

EniLaueIpnla RupuC Lcu&e1s
Yesterday, while President Wilson was talk
ing Of endless peace az Paris, Secretary Daniels
talked at Annapolis Of a dominant navy. Before
anyone can tell whether we are drifting into
times of enduring quietude or to years OF over
whelming ornaments and new mighty enmi-
ties, the house committee on military affairs IS
placidly approving plans for standing army OF
100000.
Postmaster General Burleson, at play amid
the telegraph wires, is getting deeper into his
muddle. He seems happier for it. There is
hardly a day when Senator Borah and Senator
Lodge do not arise to let it be known that after
the world has made up its mind and arranged
its peace they will have something terrible to
say. Indeed it is impossible to look toward
Washington in these times without experience
ing sense of loose and flying ends of thought
OF fogs and uncertainty, of an absence of ideas
and convictions and working knowledge.
Congress is about the only remaining corner
of civilization in which it is difficult to find
general and whole-hearted sympathy for Mr..
Wilson and his purposes. There are too many
senator's and representatives who know what
they would not do But they do not know
what they would do at Paris. 1t would be pos
sible more greatly to admire Mr.. Lodge and
Mr.. Borah, for example, if when they arose to
talk they. would suggest better method than
that which Mr.. Wilson and the other Americans
are applying at the peace conference.
There is one serious fault to be found with
most of the criticism aimed at the Wilsonian
policies. 1t is suited only to old times. And
everybody knows that old times never return.
1t is commonly said in Washington that the
president is to blame because he didn't take the
country-or its senator's and representatives,
into his confidence before he went abroad. Does
the skipper of ship tell his owners just how
he is to make his course daily and hourly upon
strange seas?
Mr. Wilson appears to have known before
he started for Europe what everyone who reads
has since been able to perceive-that he was
to be opposed by forces as formless and as dam
gerous as a tempest and as difficult to grapple
with. 1t is apparent that he has had to steer
as any good navigator steers, not in accordance
with previously determined forms and formu-
las, but according to the drift of tides and wind
and weather
OF course, Washington is distressed and
mysthed. The whole world is distressed and
mystihed. To listen to Mr.. Lodge and Mr.
Borah, to study the reactions of Mr.. Daniels
and Mr.. Burleson and the other cabinet men,
bers who grope in circles is to be acutely aware
Of the mental vacuum that now aflicts most of
official Washington.
Those who are actually interested in Amer
lea will do we'll to remember in these DAYS that
talk is easy and achievement difficult The
critic has no responsibilities. Those whom he
crltlcizeS have great and heavy ones. Washing
ton is killing time. A part of it is getting into
mischief for the want of better things to do
Mr.. ,burleSon, with MS wires, and Secretary
Wilson of the Department of Labor, when he
talks of the bolshevists in America are running
rather wild. They show the absence of guild
ing hand. They, too, are symptoms of a gen
era affection. Washington is like a man in an
empty house, who feels suddenly anxious and
forlorn and wishes the family were home, with
out knowing what to do meanwhile.
Definite criticism, definite plans, schemes for
the future will be impossible until the presi-
dent returns and makes his report to the ma
ton We shall have to know the nature Of the
future world before we can know the terms
upon which we can deal with it.
For the present the world is in fux There
is no precedent to guide America, nothing in
history which might guide a man in dealing
with the situation which confronts the Amer
lean delegates at Paris. We shall have to trust
for the present in the astuteness and devotion
OF the president But there are men in Wash
ington with regulations for sagacity to main
tain and others who haven't outived the pleas
ure which they derive from seeing their names
in print, if only in the Record When we know
how far the nations of Europe are willing to 60
to avoid the sickening menace of future wars
and the almost equally ruinous burden of arma-
ments we shall be able to make plans and talk
intelligehtly of the future.
And we shall know too. whether the presi
dent has succeeded or failed.
Washington means we'll enough It will be
its old self when it has something tangible to
think about. Meanwhile we can bear its little
idiosyncrasies. And it is worth remembering
that there are men in Washington who under
stand the immensely of our present and future
problems But they are waiting. They rarely
talk. They are the silent ones.