The Cordova daily times., 1920-05-21
FRIDAY, MAY 21, 1920
PERSISTS IN A PECULIAR OBSES.
 SION

In a letter to former Representa- tive Jouett Shouse, of Kansas, read st the Kansas Democratic convention, President Wilson sair:
 '@The issue which it is our duty to raise with the voters of the country involves nothing less than the honor of the United States and the redemp- tion of it's most solemn obligations, it's obligations to it's associates in the great war and to mankind to whom it gave the most explicit pledge when it went to war, not merely to win victory in arms, but also to fol- low up that victory with the estab- hshment of such a concert of nations as would guarantee the permanence of a peace based on justice
 President Wilson is still indulging the modest theory that he is the United States. The congress of the United States, which acts on behalf of the American people in declaring war, said nothing in the declaration about promising the world that it would not only win the war out establish a concert of nations that would guarantee eternal peace on earth. That would have beon a fool promise to make, because 10 man or body of men with any regard for it's word would promise something it would manifestly be Impossible to certainly fulfill. Whether or not eter- nal world peace is possible is still a moot question, and whether or not the cOntraptiOn rigged up at Paris would accomplish that end is, to say the least, a debatable proposition.
 The only declarations of purpose on the part of this country in enter irg the war other than that given in President Wilson's message to con- gress calling for a declaration of war against Germany and in the declara- tiOn of war itself,-the defense of the rights and interests of the American people-were made by President Will son himself. These were not "prom- ises" to our associates in the war and to mankind; we didn't have to promise anything in order to get into fight from which we expected noth- ing and where the effect manifestly was to save from defeat the allies to whom President Wilson now declares we made solemn. promises" As for the rest of mankind, it can scarcely be claimed that we had to make prom 1ses to Germany, Austria, Turkey and company i1 order to get the privilege of entering the war; they would not have given their consent if we had.
 President Wilson used the war as a frame upon which to spread a great many declarations that had nothing to do with the war or our part or purpose in it. Just as the greedy con- tractor used the war as an excuse for putting things over on the public, so President Wilson employed it as a background for an attempt to make the world over on the pattern of .the new freedom. Tn so doing he did not ask the consent of anybody, and he had no mandate from the people for tfe formulation of the Fourteen points which were so completely abandoned by him and repudiated by his asso- ciates in the preparation of the treaty Of Paris. The we'll remembered fact is that President Wilson put m to the people of the country in October, 1918, the issue of whether or not he was their fully authorized representa- tive in all that had to do with settling sf1e issue of the World war, and the verdict at the polls was such that any any chief executive with less of an obsession as to his own omniscience and omnipotence would have taken the hint and called in a few other people to cooperate in defining the policies of the country.
 The statement that all these per sonal declarations Of President Will son, made not only without authority but even in the face of direct repu- dfation of the people, are binding