Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 148, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 June 1919 — INCREDIBLE INCAPACITY. [ARTICLE]

INCREDIBLE INCAPACITY.

The election of 1920 ought to turn upon the shocking failure of the Democratic party to conduct the business of the nation, and signally upon the un-American tendencies it has developed in the direction of radical arid socialistic policies. On this basis, the republicans might reasonably expect to sweep the country. . No one knows this better than Woodrow Wilson. He is a shrewd diviner of men’s minds, and he experiences little or no difficulty in directing the course of his party. His duty, as he sees it, is to choose some other and more favorable issue upon which his administration may be approved before the people and his party retained in power. Twice he has beaten the republicans through superior skill in selecting the battleground. If he can do this again, he counts on another victory. He suggests, therefore, that a better place to fight the campaign of 1920 is the part the United States played in the world war and its participation in the treaties by which the struggle came to its close and its fruits were garnered. What do the leaders of the Republican party say to this clever move? Well, they fall into the trap. They say, Yes, it will be perfectly all right with us to throw away the four aces and a gun with which we might win the people to a return of economical, efficient government, acknowledging Hie reign of supply and demand and the value of private initiative, the protection of property and the conservation of business. Yes, we will cheerfully throw all this away and match strength with Woodrow Wilson upon the proposition of the peace treaty and the league of nations. It. is easy to see what will happen. Even now the president is massing his forces for a nation-wide attack upon the league of nations front. Instead of supporting this great and promising effort to supersede war. by negotiation, as they did so effectively in the issue of winning the war, when they wisely frustrated Mr. Wilson’s hope and plan to put them in wise and manly course, the republicans now allow Mr. Wilson to pick the best thing he has and will try to answer .him as they did in 1916, when he won on the “he kept us out of war” business. The explanation of this amazing ] stupidity is, of course, that the republican leaders are not ruled by reason and reflection, but have confessedly succumbed to a hysterical antipathy toward Woodrow Wilson. They can think of nothing but their insane desire to oppose and denounce everything he does and everything they can charge him with doing or even planning. The people will not follow them. The eyes of sensible men and women are on the future problems of this nation. On the issue between capacity for reconstruction, the Republican party might confidently expect a favorable decision. On the basis of a battle staged and directed by Woodrow Wilson himself, and involving the necessary ai)d inevitable outcome at Paris, it has the right to expect defeat. —Indianapolis Star.