Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-10-28

hoo SToWH SCeaully In Cne passing UlOntUb,
deepening also in intensity as the study Of
world conditions and world needs mas pro-
ceeded III
Developments here and abroad indicate
that the Presidents demand that the
American people subscribe to stereo-
typed covenant of EurL oean workmanship
with arabesque Wilsonian trimmings is an
unwise and impossible demand. It will not
suffice to point to the long array Of na2
tio3s that have subscribed to the covenant
and ask why they accepted it if it be not
altogether desirable. They had their own
reasons for so doing, and as yet they have
not succeeded in making it march. We
Americans will accept it, or will not, for
reasons of our own, reasons deemed suffi-
cient by us. If we reject the present cove
nant that action will not be due to selfish
ness, as the President asserts, but to the.
promptings of true American idealism. -
The Democratic party, responding with
notable docility to the coercive guidance of
President Wilson, demands in its national
platform the acceptance of the covenant
without material change. So does Mr.;
Cox, its nominee. It's most authoritative
spokesman, President Wilson, charges
critics of the covenant with gross ignora
ance and impudent audacity." 1t Is
shameful charge. 1t is leveled at very
many sincere Americans. It smacks of in.
tolerance. 1t is refuted by the reasoning Of
able minds here and abroad. 1t is an unss
pleasant backwash of the free-fowing tide
of self-sufRciency that carried the Presi-
dent, surrounded by his personally selected
satellites, to the Paris Peace Conferences
there to exchange the specific pledges Of
his fourteen points for League of Nations
so devised as to require the American pso1
pie to guarantee the permanence of manX..
glaring injustices embalmed in harsh
peace. Bitter words, now spoken against
his opponents by the executive who has
failed to force his will upon the nation arc
mere uncouth debris from crumblinH
dictatorship. -
That dictatorship is, after all, the domis
nant issue of the present national CAM
paign. 1t has been acclaimed by the Demo-
cratic party and by Mr.. Cox. Its shadow
rests upon Mr.. Cox's candidacy with the
ponderable quality of solid substance and
it also saturates that candidacy with fluid
thoroughness. Indeed, the movement to
make Mr.. Cox President upon an issue die
tated by Mr.. Wilson has come to mean, II
not an attempted prolongation Of the
Wilson regime, at least an effort to win an
impressive popular vindication Of its
49, Il ro1;oioo or6 practicna Ennr 20
ago, in advocating the election of Mr.
Hughes to the presidency, The Daily News
said: president Wilson not only has
tanned, but he has drugged the DEMOCRATIC
leaders of the present Congress-" 1t said
also of those and other Democratic party
leaders: "They have now so regulated
their own little mentalities that these
minor mechanisms keep time in complete
obedience with the thinking machine in tho
White House. This synchronism is beauty
fully harmonious, but it plays the mischief
with representative government" That
characterization still stands as applicable
to the present situation. For the sake Of
sound democratic principles the WilsoniaH
legend of infallibility should be rejected by
the voters on November 2.
Not merely, nor even chiefly, that there
point of view of world peace formulas
though that is exceedingly important, as
Mr.. Harding so earnestly insists-baG
mainly because the American people owa
it to themselves and to their cherished SYST
tenn of democratic government to repudiI
ate the heresy of one-man rule, with it's
inevitable swarms of grave errors and
costly deficiencies, it's confusions and fatu
tiles, its putting Of petty men in high
places to be seen and not heard, The Daily
News advises voters of independent minds
to oppose the candidacy of Mr.. Cox. 4.
It has been the good fortune Of Mrs
Harding in the present campaign to stand
as the advocate of the nations return I'd
true representative government. H1
avowed preference is for an administraS
tion resting upon the joint wisdom of thS
President and men in executive officet
under his supervision, all consulting freely
with other representatives of the peopla
He lays no claim to wisdom SURPRISING
that of his fellow countrymen. He promt
ises to lead by harmonizing differences, u