The Cordova daily times., 1920-08-21

country-namely, the rabid Roosevelt and his personal choice for presi- dent?"
 This of course was a direct appeal to the hyphenate. Repeatedly Mir. Cox's paper asked for the reelection of President Wilson as a means of aiding Germany. And in it's appeal for the favor of Communications it went so far as to suggest the ad- vantage of German victory. On November 2, 1915, over year after the invasion of Belgium and six MT. Cox's paper said editorially.
 "Nor is victory by Germany the worst thing that can happen. If the allies were to win and their winning meant a great increase of Russian aggressiveness on the one side and of Japanese assertiveness upon the other, America might live to be very sorry that Germany had not won"
 This is familiar German-American propaganda argument.
 Less than six months before our entry into the war, the murder of Americans by German submarines on the high seas was fresh in the minds of their fellow-citizens, Mr. Cox's paper, on October 16, 1916, de- clared that the German U-boats had "committed no crime against Still later on December 12, when nation after nation had enlisted against Germany, MT, Cox's newspaper prayed that the next arm lifted to wield the sword "so foolishly" in the war (which it declared was without re- suit for either side) and "the crime of all the ages" should be "paralyzed" and that arm was destined to be Americas.
 In reply it is said on MT Cox's be- half that these opinions were those, not of MT. Cox personally, but of his editorial writer, George F. Burba. Mr. Cox himself challenges anyone to find any word of his own indicating that he was not opposed to the Ger man military oligarchy.
 At some length Mr. Burba accepts responsibility for these editorials, saying that he tried to be neutral and that Governor Cox was not in the city much of the time and paid no at tentiOn to these enditorials.
 Either MT. Cox did not know what was being said by his paper, or, knowing, did not think the matter i'm portant enough to warrant his inter ference, or else he agreed with what was written. In any case, is his act ion or inaction consistent with quail ifications for leadership at time when men who saw the moral issue were enlisting in the armies of the allies, giving or risking their lives, and other men, Theodore Roosevelt among them, were willing to pay any cost if so they could help their coun- try to see the right? We doubt whether MT. Cox was ignorant of these editorials, for in an interview printed in the New York Times MT. Cox speaks as follows
 T like the newspaper game too 1 do not devote myself to any one branch of the paper. I watch the editorial column, the news, the cir. culatlon, and the advertising I re ceive reports daily no matter where 1 am, from both of my papers, so that I know exactly just what they are doing"
 Though MT. Cox himself has not sought to escape responsibility for these pro-German statements, he has undertaken to offset them by point ing to his war record as governor We cannot see that that has anything to do with it. It is not MT. Cox's loyalty or executive ability that is put under suspicion as a result of his newspapers utterances; it is rather his capacity for understanding the vital issues, his fitness for leader ship, his moral and mental eligibility for the presidency Never in it's his tory has the American republic beer confronted with a greater issue thar that created by Germany's con scienceless crime against liberty ano law. According as a man saw that is sue and met it he judged himself. By his response to it he rendered for or against himself his own, verdict This is what happens in every crisis Of course at such a time there are men who find themselves on the