Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 70, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1919 — CRITICISES PRES. WILSON [ARTICLE]

CRITICISES PRES. WILSON

INDIANA HISTORIAN SAYS PRESIDENT WILSON WANTS . ALL THE GLORY.

Dr. James A. Woodburn, professor of American history in Indiana university, in his article on the League of Nations in Monday’s Indianapolis Star, has the following to say in reference to President Woodrow Wilson : The topic of the hour is the league of nations. The proposal now pending has been acclaimed in the Senate of the United States as the most important matter placed before the American people since the nation was founded. Advocates and opponents of the league seem to agree with one accord in this estimate of the vital importance of the question now befqre the nations of the world. It is recognized that such a question it not to be settled for America’ merely by the President nor by the Senate. The President may propose, but there is another power that will dispose. The Senate may oppose, but there is a higher power that may overrule that opposition. That power is the power of the people. Public opinion in America will determine what the Senate will do, or whether the peace league of the nations will live or die. It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that public opinion shall have the benefit of free, full, fair and candid discussion. Immediately obstacles and difficulties arise. All assert that the discussion should be above the plane of personalities, prejudices and partisanship. But already much of the discussion has raged around the personality of Mr. Wilson and his conduct of affairs. lam far from saying that President Wilson is not a vulnerable subject of attack. He has unnecessarily made himself to appear as wishing to shut off all others in this great work. He has not seemed willing, as he should have been, to ask the advice of the Senate, or to consult the leaders, Republicans and Democrats, on its foreign affairs committee. As last fall he asked the people to elect only Democrats to help him conduct the war, so now he seems to wish to gather to himself and his party all the glory and honor that may accrue from obtaining a league of nations and a world peace, and he announces that the league must go through as a “rider” to the peace. This is unseemly and unfortunate, and it will be made to appear like an effort to force the presidential judgment* upon the Senate. Wilson and Lodge should have been brought together in the interest of so great a cause; and that they have not been does not appear to be the fault of Senator Lodge. But as the people were able to stand united in the war in spite of the drawback arising from the personal and party manner of the President, so now they should continue to stand together in disregard of party in their unfinished fight for a permanent peace. r