Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 150, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 July 1918 — “IN” AND “DURING.” [ARTICLE]

“IN” AND “DURING.”

Speaking to congress, bn May 27, 1918, President Wilson made this statement: Politics is adjourned. The elections will go to those who think least of it; to those who go to the constituencies without explanations or excuses, with a plain record of duty faithfully and disinterestedly performed.

The politicians of the country have been rather slow about taking this assertion at its face value. Politics is not adjourned in Indiana, because the Democrats are holding conferences and the Republicans are either doing the same thing or else preparing to. do so. Politics is not adjourned in Wisconsin, where the Democrats have refused to consider fusion with the Republicans on a loyalty platform. Politics is not adjourned in Connecticut, where the Republicans held a convention a short time ago. In short, politics, is not adjourned anywhere. So there is added interest in a passage in an interview given by Will H. Hays, Republican national chairman, in New York a few days ago. His questioner recalled that the chairman had said he wanted no politics in the war “and yet you are bending every effort to elect Republicans. How do you reconcile those two positions?” To which Mr. Hays replied: I mean there must be no politics in the war, but I am far from meaning no politics during the war. It is absurd to suppose that we will abdicate all political differences dur-

ing the war. That is impossible, nor is it advisable. So here we have a distinction between “in” and “during.” We must have no politics in the conduct of the war, but we shall have politics in plenty during the time the war is in progress. Perhaps Mr. Hays has consciously or unconsciously interpreted the real meaning of the President’s remark. Mr. Hays is insisting that the Republicans are really trying twice as hard to win the war as are the Democrats. The Democratic reply is that' such an assertion is absurd. In order to prove the truth of the Republican contention the Republicans will have to submit concrete evidence. Sb they must try “twice as hard” to win the war. And, of course, the Democrats will try to go them one better. So it is possible politics may bring some good result®, after all.—lndianapolis News. a,uMdsonm?