Salt Lake Tribune | 1917-03-24 | Page 6 | Few Copperheads

FEW COPPERHEADS. A great majority of the United States senators and members of the house of representatives are ready to back the president to the fullest extent, even the perpetual carpers and fault finders being compelled to fall into line for the sake of appearance. The patriotic utterances of Senator Borah of Idaho will meet with a ready response all over the United Unit-ed States and with few exceptions the people will insist upon maintaining the honor and dignity of the republic and the rights of its citizens. We do not know what course coming events may take, but we do know that the time is at hand when the small-soulcd -individual, either in or out of office, should keep silent. Vardaman of Mississippi, one ofj the twelve senators who killed the armed neutrality bill during the last session, now says that if congress should declare de-clare war on Germany he would "vote to give the president men and money, to the last soul and dwindling farthing, necessary to uphold my country 's cause." It is a great pity Vardaman did not think of his country's cause a little sooner. He would be in much better bet-ter repute among his countrymen and ; would not be compelled to issue statements state-ments for the purpose of proving he is not a copperhead. Edward Yoigt, representative rep-resentative in congress from the Sheboygan, She-boygan, Wis., district, has announced i that he will vote ''noJ if the house is asked to declare war on Germany. We need look no farther than the spelling of his name for the reason. There may be other senators and representatives who hold this man's views and will vote "no" for similar reasons, but they are few in number and they are powerless to do harm save to themselves and the losing cause they dare to uphold in the face of loyal American sentiment. In the language of the London Daily Telegraph, the action to be taken by the United States in the first week of April "is the turning point in the world's history, as well as of the history of the United States." All that could be done to avoid participation in the European war has been done by the administration ad-ministration at Washington and there are millions of Americans who think we have delayed too long, but now that the call to arms is about to be issued there should be no backfires set in the rear of the government, and the men of all shades of political belief and of all creeds should move forward shoulder to shoulder, for, as Senator Borah says, the only way we can acomplish our object is for each of us to do his part wisely and efficiently.