| OCR Text |
Show THE PRESIDENTS COMMAND. NOTHING has so aroused the people of the United States for years as the command issued by President Wilson in which he said that it was necessary for the country to return a Democratic congress con-gress this- year. The. edict is a' direct insult to every red-blooded American for the reason that his patriotism was questioned, that his rights as a citizen were invaded, that he was unfitted to determine for himself who should enact legislation for the country. Every American citizen has a right, free and untrameled, to express ex-press his political preference. It is this that makes a republic. The , edict means that jio one, unless he be a Democrat, is capable of pass-inguipon pass-inguipon the merits of candidates for the national legislature. The command of the President : "My Fellow Countrymen: The congressional elections are at hand. They occur in the most critical period our country has ever faced or is likely to face in our time. If you have approved of my leadership and wish me to continue to be your unembarrassed spokesman spokes-man in affairs at home and abroad, I earnestly beg that you will express ex-press yourself unmistakably to that effect by returning a Democratic majority to both the senate and house of representatives. "I am your servant and will accept your judgment without cavil, but my power to administer the great trust assigned me by the constitution con-stitution would be seriously impaired should your judgment be adverse, ad-verse, and I must frankly tell you so because so many critical issues depend upon your verdict. No scruple of taste must in grim times like these be allowed to stand in the way of speaking the plain truth. "I have no thought of suggesting that any political party is para-i para-i mount in matter of patriotism. I feel too deeply the sacrifices which I have been made in this war by all our citizens irrespective of party affiliations, to harbor such an idea. I mean only that the difficulties and delicacies of our present task arc of a sort that makes it imperatively impera-tively necessary that the nation should give its undivided support to the government under a unified leadership and that a Republican congress con-gress would divide the leadership. "The leaders of the minority in the present congress have unquestionably un-questionably been pro-war, but they have been semi-administration. At almost every turn since we entered the.war they have sought to take the choice of policy and the conduct of the war out of my hands and put it under the -control of instrumentalities of their own choosing. choos-ing. "This is;no"tim"e either for-divided council or -for divided leadership. leader-ship. Unity of command is as necessary now in civil action as-it is upon the field of battle. If the control of the house and the senate should be taken away from the party now in power, an opposing ma- jonty could assume control of legislation and oblige all action to be .H taken amidst contest and obstruction. H "The return of a Republic majority to either house of congress M would moreover be interpretative on the other side of the water as a H repudiation of my leadership. Spokesmen of the Republican party H are urging you to elect a Republican congress in order to back up and H support the President,, but even if they should in this impose upon H some credulous voters on this side of the water they would impose M on no one on the other side. It is well understood there as well as M here that the Republican leaders desire not so much to support the H President as to control him. H "The peoples of the allied countries with whom we are associated H against Germany are quite familiar with the significance of elections. H They would find it very difficult to believe that the voters of the H United States had chosen to support their President by electing to H the congress a majority controlled by those who are not in fact in H sympathy with the attitude and action of the administration. H "I need not tell you, my .fellow countrymen, that I am asking H your support not for my own sake or for the sake of a political party, ' but for the sake of the nation itself in order that its inward unity of M purpose may be evident to all the world. In ordinary times I would -; not feel at liberty to make such an appeal to you. In ordinary times ,' M divided counsels can be endured without permanent hurt to the coun- H try. But these are not ordinary times. H "If in these critical days it is your wish to sustain me with un- H divided minds, I beg that you will say so in a way which it will not be H possible to misunderstand either here at home or among our associ- ates on the other side of the sea. I submit my difficulties and my H hopes to you. H "WOODROW WILSON." " I This command, we say, has aroused the country as it has not be- H fore in years. Republicans have stood behind the President in every H move that he has made to win the war. They will so continue. They H have given their sons to the country. Hundreds of them have made H the supreme sacrifice. No question as to whether they belonged to H the Democrat or Republican party was asked of them when they re- H sponded to the call to the colors. They were and are Americans. H They resent the command as do their fathers and mothers who gave H their sons to the country. In answer to the command, chiefs of the H Republican party have issued a statement to the American people. It fl follows : H "Some time ago the President said 'Politics is adjourned.' Now, H in the closing days of the campaign, delayed by the united efforts of H all parties for the Liberty loan, now, when all public meetings have JH been given up owing to the influenza epidemic, the President sends out a direct party appeal, calling upon his countrymen to vote for H Democrats because they are Democrats, without any reference to H whether such Democrats have been or are in favor of war measures H and have a war record which deserves support. (JM "The voters of Michigan, to take a single example, are called H upon to support Mr. Henry Ford, notorious for his advocacy of peace at any price, for his contemptuous allusions to the flag, for the ex- emption of his son from military service, on the sole ground that he H will blindly support the President. The President is quite ready to admit that Republicans are loyal enough to fight and die, as they are doing by the thousand ; loyal enough to take up great loans and pay enormous taxes ; loyal enough to furnish important men at no salary on some of the great war boards in Washington. But they are not loyal enough, in the President's opinion, to be trusted with any share in the government of the country or legislation for it. JH "If the Republican party cc trols the house we can point out some of the things they will do. They will replace Mr. Dent of Ala- bama at the head of the military affairs committees with Mr. Julius Kahn, to whom the administration was obliged to turn for assistance to take charge of and carry the first draft bill against Mr. Dent's op- position. They will put a Republic at the head of the wjay'sncl means committee, as leader of the house, instead of Mr.. Kitfchiff'o'f ' North Carolina who voted against the war. They will gie the coun- try a speaker who did not oppose and vould nevr oppose a draft bill H I j . JM B and would never say, as Speaker Clark did, that 'There is precious ' H little diffeience between a conscript and a convict.' H "Although the Republicans of the house are in the minority, they H cast more actual votes on seven great war measures than the Demo- H cratic majority was able to do. What is the record of the senate? H On fifty-one roll calls on war measures between April 6, 1917, and the H 29th of May, 1918, the votes cast by Republicans in favor of such H measures were 72 per cent, while only 67 per cent of the votes cast tn H the Democratic side weie in favor of such measures. Those were the H Prsident's own measuies. Docs that record look as if we had ham- H pered him ? The Republican party in congress has supported the ad- B ministration policies since the war with a unanimity and an absence H of criticism unprecedented in party history. H "There are some domestic questions where we should undoubted- M l ly differ from the course pursued by the administration. We should m not, for example, fix a price on the farmer's wheat and leave the plant- M f er's cotton untouched. Another domestic question in which the Re- M I publican party believes thoroughly is economic preparation for the M coming of peace and they are clearly of the opinion that the congress M of the United States should not be excluded from that great task. M . "This is not the President's personal war. This is not the war of H congress. It is not the war of the Democratic or the Republican H paity. It is the war of the American people. It is more. It is the H war of the United States, of the allied powers, of the civilized world H! against barbaiism of Germany. In this great burden and responsi- H bjlity the Republican party, representing more than half the citizen- H ship of the country, demands its rightful share. If the Republican H party is entrusted with power in either or both houses it will do ev- H erything possible to drive forward the war and hasten the day of H victory. The President speaks of the necessity of telling the plain H truth. That the Republican party in control of congress would dp, for H they have no friends to shield. And they will do more. They will H give all the money to the last dollar necessary to sustain our armies H and our fleets, but they will check the waste now going on of the H money given by the most geneious people on the face of the earth. B "The President speaks of the effect of the election abroad. He H says there they understand the meaning of elections. They do, and M they will know that if the Republicans have a majority in congress, M the war will be pressed with greater vigor than ever before. They are M quite aware that the power of the senate is equal to that of the Presi- m dent in the consummation of peace by treaty. They will know that B ' the Republican party stands for a victorious peace and the overthrow M I of Prussian militarism. That knowledge will not depress the spirit M of our allies or encourage the government of Germany. M "The Republican party believes that the question of surrender m should be left to Marshal Foch, to the general and to the armies in B the field. When they report Germany has laid down her arms the H United States and the allies should then impose their terms. Will H. , that knowledge cause dejection to those who are fighting with us? H All the world knows that the Republican party is opposed to negoti- H ations and discussion carried on in diplomatic notes addressed to the H i German government. The Republican party stands for unconditional H surrender. There is no Republican creed so short that there is not H room-in it for those two words." m ' (Signed) H "Henry Cabot Lodge, . "Reed Smoot, chairman Republican senatorial committee, I l j "Frederick H. Gillett, "Simeon D. Fess, chairman Republican congressional committee." J People of Utah, opportunity is given you on Tuesday nextto ah-1 i $ . swer the command. Show your Americanism by casting ) our ballot ' for the Republican nominees for congress. Exercise the right ac- 1 coided you by the constitution. This is a republic not an autocracy. |
