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Show ' 3 Published Every Saturday BY GOODWIN8 WEEKLY PUBLISHING CO., INC. F. P. GALLAGHER, Editor and Mgr. L. J. BRATAGER, Business Mgr. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: Including postage In the United States, Canada and Mexico $2.00 per year, $1.25 for six months. Subscriptions to all foreign countries, within the Postal Union, $3.50 per year. 8!ngle copies, 5 cents. Payment shbuld be made by Check, Money Order or Registered Letter, payable to The Citizen. Address all communications to The Citizen. Entered as second-clas- s matter, June 21, 1919, at the Postoffice at Salt Lake of March 3, 1879. Act under the Utah, City, Salt Lake City, Utah. Ness Bldg. Phone Wasatch 5409. 311-12-- 13 PRESIDENT SHOULD WELCOME SENATES AID the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate asked the to let them dispose of the Mexican bomb he, in effect, replied : No, thank you, Ill carry it myself. In a graceful letter to Senator Fall the President politely requests the Foreign Relations Committee to mind its own business. He takes the position that the initiative in directing relations with foreign governments is given by the constitution to the executive and the executive alone, and he adds that all the precedents support his WHEN view. 9 The President has made another mistake, one comparable to that which brought down upon him the resentment of the country a year ago when he urged that only Democrats be elected to Congress. Those who profess to see unerring logic in the Presidents letter overlook an unusual fact. He is not in the position of any other executive of the United States who has been called upon to deal with a crisis involving war and peace. He is sick. His physical vitality has been gravely undermined and while, no doubt, his mental qualifications are adequate to the task, he has not the strencth to handle the problem. It requires constant attention, exhaustive inquiry and prompt decisions. In Paris the President, far stronger than he is today, refused to avail himself of help and literally worked himself into a physical wreck. The result was a confusion of mind which led him to ignore basic American principles and surrender to the ideas and ideals of European imperialism and Asiatic despotism. Previous practices are not true guides in an unprecedented situation; Just because the situation was unprecedented, the Foreign Relations Committee proffered its services. It saw the war clouds gath-in- g over the Mexican puzzle and the President apparently unable to cope with quickly succeeding events of a momentous character. The President was like a warrior stricken on the field of battle. His lieutenants rushed to his aid, but he bade them stand aside while he, sorely wounded and prone on the ground, continued to challenge the enemy. The senators whose business it is to deal with foreign affairs would have been derelict in their duty had they not offered their help. And the President made the mistake of pointing to constitutional precedents when lie should have been consulting the wishes of his physician. In his case the daily chari of the doctor was a safer guide than the constitution. In point of fact, however, there arc various precedents to support the act of the Foreign Relations Committee and there are even more precedents which should constrain the chief executive to seek the advice of the Senate on matters of foreign relations. Our earlier Presidents thought it no disparagement of their dignity nor any diminution of their prerogatives to consult with the Senate about proposed treaties and the initiation of negotiations with foreign governments. In the sense that the President represents all the people it ris presumed that he may be entrusted safely with negotiations in a war crisis, but as a matter of history it is a peril t.o the nation. We do not forget the New York speech of the President at the burial services for the Americans killed at Vera Cruz. He seemed to be weighed down almost with remorse that he had taken the steps which led to the invasion of Mexico. And, in truth, that invasion was dictated by. his unwillingness to repudiate Admiral Mayos Tampico edict. The admiral had exacted, among other things, that the Mexican authorities salute the American flag and President Wilson backed the demand. It seemed to be the patriotic way of handling the matter, but it was an unusual demand and quickly resulted in ultimatums and war. Had the question been referred to the Foreign Relations Committee and then to the Senate we might have escaped war. The President, in his New York speech, appeared to be thinking that he should have avoided the conflict, although he did not make the direct admission. The foregoing, of course, voices a personal impression and may be somewhat wide of the mark, but it is cited here by way of showing n decisions in a war crisis are always dangerous. We that know what such decisions produced in the crisis between Austria and Serbia in 1914. That crisis-wacuriously like the crisis with Mexico. The Serbian government was accused of sharing in the plot which resulted in the assassination of Grand Duke Ferdinand at Sarajevo. Serbia was, or at least was described by Austria, as a bad neighbor intent on disn empire. An Austrian foreign membering the minister, on his own responsibility and that of his emperor, took the initiative in forcing a war that was desired, not by the people of the dual monarchy, but by Franz Josef and the German kaiser and his one-ma- s Austro-Hungaria- Junkers. Mexico apparently has been duplicating the bad manners of Serbia. At all events the Carranza government is accused of sharing in a plot to destroy the United States. The President, like Emperor Franz Josef or Kaiser Wilhelm, undertakes to handle the crisis without aid and warns the chosen representatives of the people to stand aside. If the Presidents handling of the Mexican problem during the seven years of his administration had been more successful the people |
