Evening Republican, Volume 59, Number 97, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 May 1917 — Words True and Prophetic. [ARTICLE]

Words True and Prophetic.

Out quarrel, as the president has told congress, is not so much with the Genman people as with the German government, whose offense is—again using the president’s laguage—in developing cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, such as can be worked out and kept from the light only “within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class.” Yet the president is now carrying on our quarrel with the German government along the same lines of action which he has condemned in that government. We have no royal court in America, nor is it, perhaps, wholly just to say that Mr. Wilson is developing any cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression. But it is undeniable that he is working out whatever plans he may have and that he is keeping them front the light “behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class.” That class is made up of a few democrats—two or three senators, two or three representatives and Col. E. M House. The senators and represenatives take no responsibility except to rise in their places on sibn and say, “I have just received a message from the president to such and such effect.” Col. House takes no responsibility whatever. He holds no office. He is answerable to nobody—and he sees the president before the president sees the two or three senators and representatives. What the president and Col. House decide upon is communicated to the little group of congressional dictagraphs, and from them goes the word which is expected to spur the constituted representatives of a hundred millions of free men into blind action. Under this system, hundreds as millions are voted without adequate discussion and with no semblance of adequate explanation: and unheard of powers are-proposed for therpresident and his yet unnamed subordinates. Nothing in the course of Germany’s development of her schemes of aggression and expansion has exceeded the scope cf some of the proposals which have been put To the American congress in the last few weeks. It may be urged that this is fighting the devil with fire: and it is sufficient answer to say. that we are not provided with asbestos gloves such as a combat of that kind requires. This nation is not accustomed to “wars provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men,” to draw once snore from the president’s ample vocabulary: and such a war has been deemed, as Mr. Wilson has intimated, “happily impossible” for us because, as the president himself has said, this is a land “where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning the nation’s affairs?’ Those words, spoke to congress on that fateful second of April, were true and they are prophetic. The spirit which they contain will prevail in this country, espionage bills, embargo measures and attempted secrecy of legislation to the contrary notwithstanding.

Mrs. John I. Gwin left this morning for Jamestcflvn, N. Dak. Mr. and Mrs. Gwin own a very excellent farm near Jamestown and they are anxious to add to this holding by buying more of the good North Dakota soil. The following Wheatfield boys have enlisted in the U. S. navy: Richard Demarah and a young man by the name of Maize. The. following from Wheatfield have enlisted in the regular army: Richard Bowie, Russell Hickam, Allen Fendig, Dee Dunn, Frank Ferguson, George Williams, Fred Yeagley and Clifford Hamilton. It is understood that Fendig and ■Hamilton were unable to pass the physical examination.