Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1918 — WIN-THE-WAR POLICY ANNOUNCED BY HAYS [ARTICLE]

WIN-THE-WAR POLICY ANNOUNCED BY HAYS

Washington, Feb. 28.—Will H. Hays, chairman of the Republican national committee, wishes to label the Republican party as “The Win-the-War-Now Party.” His stand on the war, it becomes evident today, is equally responsible with the “open door” policy for the success which he has met in the first stages of his campaign work. He already has won the confidence of practically every leader in the party. His “war talk” has been of a first class kind, it is agreed, and there is nothing half way about it. Mr. Hays declares the United States is in the war, and that it is right to stand behind the President, and he declares that the Republicans can stand behind the President better than the Democrats.

There has been no pussyfooting about Mr. Hays's attitude and he has already announced his intention of seeing to it, if possible, that the Republicans of every state incorporate in their platforms this year a “win-the-war-now policy.” As a result of Mr. Hays’s visit to the. east a new understanding seems to have come to the Republican leaders. Closer co-operation between the Republican national committee and the Republican congressional committee than in the past seems assured. The leaders recognize the fact that the first political business in hand is the election of a Republican house of representatives next fall. The feeling is that if the Republicans are successful at the congressional elections the way will be open for a successful presidential campaign two years later. Mr. Hays, as the guest of Washington newspaper men at dinner last night, reiterated his policy of conducting party affairs on the “open door” bsais. “The open door policy in political matters, in my opinion,” he said, “not only includes the equal, unhampered participation in the management of a party’s affairs by the party membership, but also a frank, honest and full advisement of. the public of the party’s purposes, activities and accomplishments.” Other speakers on the program were Senators Wadsworth, of New York, and Poindexter, of Washington, and Representatives Gillett, of Massachusetts, and Kahn, of California. Chairman Hays expected to confer to-!ay with Republican se» a'.ors and r- presentatives. He sent a telegram t Sr pi tor Johnson, of California former Progressive, who is in New York, asking that the senator meet him in New York Saturday. Senator:- Penrose, of Pennsylvania; Smoot, of Utah; Borah, of Idaho, and Poindexter, of Washington, were among those on whom Mr. Hays called yesterday.