Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-05-14
REPUBLICAN PARTY NEARS
THE DAY OF OPPORTUNITY
It viii Turn to Dusk, However, Unless
Congress Handles Its Problems With
Constructive Statesmanship

Congress Handles Its Problems With
Constructive statesmanship
As liaison officer Frederick H. Gi;lett.
a speaker-elect of the House of Repre-
sentativcs, displays convincing creden-
tlalS. The link. the maintenance of which
| ne forecasts, is the authentic and tradi-
tional bond between national develop
ment and the Republican party. Petty
| spite wlthers such union. Factionalism
begotten of short-sighted political ma
neuvering invariably totters toward de-
feat.
Mr.. Gllett keenly senses the situation
The Keynote of his address to the Manu-
facturers' Club was the emphasis laid
upon the magnitude of the task confront
ing the new Congress and the only spirit
IN which the vast enterprise can be sue
| cessfully carried out. "If partisanship."
! declared the new leader of the House,
can be forgotten and we are willing to-
do our share, an era exceeding all others
in prosperity is ready for our business"
In this broad forecast of the impend-
ing drama-one of the most interesting
| and important in the whole history of
American politics-t would be mere per-
versity to conceive Mr.. Gllett as weaken
ing in his party affiliations. What he
! means by partisanship in this instance is,
of course, simply that sort of fatuous
bIunderlng which grasps at temporary
political advantages and is befuddled and
obstructionary when it comes to the
larger issues. The American people are
out of patience with such methods and
disaster is waiting for either the Repub-
licans or the Democrats that adopt them.
Healthy party rivalry, on the other
hand, is the very backbone of our do
mestic polity. What Republicans
throughout the land would like to see is
a party their loyalty to which may be in
tensified ~ the belief that it is doing the
right thing in the right way.
Out of power the capacity for such an
achievement is not always easy to prove
and criticism remains the somewhat dis
nal function of the opposition. But it is
needless now for the Republican party to
be infatuated with a fault-fnding role.
Investigations of the mammoth eXpendi-
lures of the war; inquiry into the whole
operation of our colossal and heroic VEN
ture will be perfectly legitimate.
Such procedures are admirable safe
guards in democracy. They will not,
| however, restore the iaison between the
| Republicanism in the best party sense
and national development in its widest
implications in which so many millions
of Americans for years rejoiced.
Mr.. Gillett is clearly thinking of the
revival of that link when he outlines the
momentous issues with which Congress
will have to deal Not even in Andrew
Johnson's day were the responsibilities
of Republican legislators graver than
they are now.
Leadership is the first personal essen
tial in the Republican camp, and it is the
irony of politics that this question is
complicated somewhat in the same fash
ion as in the past Democratic Congresses.
The seniority formula which inflicted
| upon the country the Kitchins and the
Dents is now preparing the path of prece-
dence for Boies Penrose as chairman of
the finance committee and Senator War
ren of Wyoming, as head of the equally
important committee on appropriations.
Certain liberal elements in the party,
notably in the West, resent this threat
ened nvestiture. Their opposition, al
though in these specific instances it may
prove unavailing, is none the less a salu-
tary influence. These "old guard" sena-
tors are unquestionably able. Their cyn-
csm is susceptible, as is that of all vet
eran politicians of their stripe, of being
turned to good uses under pressure which
their knowledge of the "game" teaches
them to be valid
1t is worth recalling that Mr.. Penrose
and Theodore Roosevelt represented the
poles of political thought, and yet canny
| appreciation of the inevitable necessi-
tated the Pennsylvania senator's support
of a presidential candidate to whom
gang" principles were anathema.
1t is quite conceivable that with pa
| triotic policing within the party the ripe
| experience and seasoned talents of the
prospective chairmen of two of the lead
| ing congressional committees may prove
of significant assistance to the construc-
tive program which the Republicans must
execute to justify their oft-proclaimed
creed.
Opportunity to reveal the vitality of
that faith will be presented in an array
of problems the complexity of which
lends even to our completed job of win
ming the war the color of elemental sim
plicity. What that task most required
was the intensifying of the dynamic ma
tional force. To settle the railroad mud
die to solve the shipping riddles and to
restore sanity to the taxation machinery
entail not only the multiplication of
energy, but expert Investigation. con-
structive wisdom and the highest powers
4 of judgment.
1t would be criminal to inject partisan
ship for its own narrow sake into this
welter of tremendous enigmas. The sig
nifcance of the liaison-officer's warning is
here at once patent, Equally futile will