Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 54, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 March 1913 — PRESIDENT WILSON INAUGURATED TODAY [ARTICLE]

PRESIDENT WILSON INAUGURATED TODAY

Professor Succeeds Taft as Chief Executive of Nation —And-We Wish Him Success. Woodrow Wilson is now president and Thomas R. Marshall la' vice-president of the United States. These gentlemen took their respective oaths of office today in Wash ington and entered upon their four year terms as the first men in the nation. Mr. Wilson retired lasi Saturday as governor of New JCr> sey; while Thos. R. Marshall retired last January as governor of Indiana. ' A cartoon in today’s Inter-Ocean pictures Miss Columbia grasping hands with Mr. JVilson and saying to him: “All good Americans, of party, unite in wishing you success, President Wilson.” Beneath the cartoon are printed the words, “So say we, all of us.” That is, we believe, the hope of eve**y loyal American. It is hoped that Woodrow Wilson is big enoughjto successfully cope with all the great problems with which he will be confronted. None, we believe,, doubt his honor or his good intentions. It is a question of his ability. He is practically untried, notwith standing his service as governor of New Jersey. He has called into the high office of secretary of state, William Jennings Bryan, a man schooled in statesmanship, but in whom many American people have observed a pronounced tendency toward radicalism that is menacing to our institutions. If he permits Bryan to have a free hand in the policy of his administration there is well grounded cause for fear. If he holds Bryan in check there is assurance of dissatisfaction. A well-known democrat at Monticello who has never been a Bryan admirer said recently when it was published that Bryan was to be the secretary of state, “My God, why don’t Wilson take a Smith & Wesson and make a speedy job of it?”

Wilson must supervise the tariff revision; he must adopt some policy regarding Mexico; he must meet the demand of his party that civil service be set aside and the spoils system adopted; he must act on the platform pledge to grant freedom to the Philippines; he must adopt a plan for the management of the trusts; he must settle the Panama canal tolls question; he must cope with the high cost of living question. He will have as his advisors men unfamiliar with the departmental labors. It is a question of his ability. So far he has shown nothing to indicate his capacity for the task. He has written much about reform but has advocated no course of securing it. He has theorized without prescribing tangible means of carrying out his theories. And now he stands face to face with a world of opportunity and a world'of expectation. It will take time to tell the jpswfer. His message to congress and what the special session does will be the first real tests of the stuff that Woodrow Wilson is made of.