Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 162, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 July 1919 — NEED FOR COMMON COUNSEL. [ARTICLE]

NEED FOR COMMON COUNSEL.

This is not a one-man country; it never has been, and unless there is a radical and wholly unimaginable change in the American character, it never will be. AU the beginning of President Willson’s first term, he announced, if recollection serves correctly, that his office door would be open and that he would be ready for consultation and counsel with all comers. Whether such an arrangement is feasible for a man who is holding as big a job as the presidency may be doubted; at any rate the door did not remain open. When it was closed the president was not only shut away from the public and his federal associates, but, as time passed, more and more remotely so, until, as further tune passed, his frequently announced .policy of taking common counsel became little more than a mem--orHoweverrHowever great may be Mr. Wilson’s confidence in the Wsdom ot his foresight and the understanding of his duties and his ability to perform them without suggestion or advice from others, he should not forget that this is a government of three co-ordinate branches, that it is the expectation that these coordinate branches shall co-ordinate, and that any .failure to do so leads neither to the best results nor to confidence in such -results as are attained. For a long time Mr. Wilson has not only not taken advice at Washington, but he has seldom listened to it, and he has apparently forgotten how to ask for it, as a president, as evidenced by the very structure of our government, is expected to ask for it. That he had not always such ideas of exclusive j administration, but that they have grown on him with his service, is evidenced by a lecture that he delivered at Columbia university long before— presumably—he i ever had any idea of becoming president. Among other things, he said m that le °There is anothercourse which the president may fpllow, and which one or two presidents °f political sagacity have with the satisfactory results that were to have been expected. He, may himself be less stiff and offish, | Say himself act in the true spirit of the constitution, and establish relations of confidence with the Lnate on hrs own initiative, carrying Ms plans to completion and, then tpying them in final form before the senate, to be accepted er

rejected, but keeping himself in confidential communication with : the leaders of the senate while his plans are in course, where this advice will be of service to him, and his information of the greatest service to them, in order that there may be a veritable counsel and a real accommodation of views, instead of a final challenge and contest. The .policy which has made rivals of the president and senate has shown itself in the president as often as in the senate, and if the constitution did indeed intend that the senate should in such matters be an executive council, it is not only the privilege of the president to treat it as such, it is also his best policy and his plain duty. As the treaty situation stands now— with the president about to start on a speech-making tour, in which he is expected to demajid the ratification of the treaty without modification —it looks very much like “a final challenge and contest”; but perhaps matters have not gone too far for amelioration, perhaps there could be a “veritable counsel and a real accommodation of views.” If there could be it would be to the distinct advantage of the country.— The Indianapolis News.