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Show LODGE ACCUSES. Senator Lodge has tossed a seventeen-incfa seventeen-incfa shelJ into the Wilson camp, and wc may expect loud reverberations. It can be taken for granted that Senator Lodge would not make his charges unless he were sure of his ground and well fortified forti-fied with authority. The senator's charges place ' "Wilson and Bryan in the same plight, liryan told Ambassador Dumba of Austria-Hungary that the " strict accountability" threat of the first Lusitania note was intended merely for public consumption in the United States. On the eve of the I second Lusitania note Mr. Bryan sud- 1 dcnly resigned. The public, when the norc was issued, was mystified. It was a much milder document than the "strict accountability" note which Bryan' had signed. If the secretary of state had no conscientious scruples about signing the first note, why did he refuse to sign the second note, was the question ques-tion which immediately presented itself to the public mind. Tn explanation of his conduct, if we remember correctly, Mr. Bryan declared that the note would get this nation iuto a war with Germany, and he argued . that a clause providing for arbitration should have been inserted. Recently Mr. Bryan, as he opened his speaking tour for Mr. 'Wilson, announced that there was no unfriendliness between him and the president, that they thoroughly understood each other, and that the public pub-lic talk of a break between them was wholly unfounded. That he was stating stat-ing the exact truth is made patent by-Senator by-Senator Lodge's charges. The president presi-dent proposed to his cabinet a postscript post-script to the second Lusitania note offering of-fering arbitration, and stating that the "strict accountability" declaration must not be taken seriously. In, other words, the president and his secretary of state were in almost complete accord, but the other members of the cabinet, sickened and enraged by this backdown, threatened to resign. The wavering chief executive withdrew the proposed postscript and adopted a somewhat sterner .attitude in compliance with the demand of his cabinet members, Bryan excepted. Finding himself abandoned by the president as Secretary of "War Garrison was abandoned a little later, Bryan had the courage to resign. It was in this fashion that the cabinet cabi-net saved the president from utter disgrace dis-grace and from repudiation by the whole people. |