Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 174, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 July 1919 — MISTAKES OF PRES. WILSON [ARTICLE]

MISTAKES OF PRES. WILSON

PARTISAN CHARACTER OF ADMINISTRATION POINTED OUT BY TAFT. Ex-President William Howard , Taft, of whom the democrats have ; ‘been saying so many nice things, | pointed out in a letter to Will H. : Hays, national chairman of the Republican party, a number of serious mistakes made by President Woodrow Wilson. X' < The latter, in part, reads as follows : “The situation which confronts us now in reference to the ratification of the treaty is ,one created by very serious mistakes of policy committed by Mr. Wilson. The partisan character of his administration during the war, together with his appeal to his countrymen to elect a democratic congress in November, 1918, created a condition of personal and political antagonism toward him among republican leaders, which was shared by a majority of the American people. This was shown din the results of the election. Notwithstanding ’ this, Mr. Wilson persisted din continuing the same partisan exclusion of republicans in dealing with the highly important matter of settling the results of the war. “I feel that some of the defects of the league of nations are due to Mm. I am confident that he prevented the adoption of the plan of the league to enforce peace in respect to an international court and the settlement of justiciable questions. * * * * “The attitude of hostility toward the president has aroused criticism and opposition which might have been avoided had he taken with him such a man as Mr. Root and two representatives of the foreign relations committee in the senate. The crtiicisms thus aroused have stirred the conscience of a number of republican senators and have endangered the ratification of the league by two-thirds of the senate. “Mr. Wilson’s influence with his democratic supporters in the senate will secure perhaps forty-five votes. Nineteen republican votes are needed and the question is how i they can be secured. I don’t think they can be secured except by relieving their conscience through reassuring interpretations of the league, of such a character that they are likely to be accepted without further negotiation And conference and delay by the other nations who dictated the peace. After consideration of the arguments, made on the subject, I have formulated these interpretations, and reservations with the hope that they will suggest a basis of agreement between the democrats and sufficient republicans to ratify the treaty and secure us the inestimable benefit of a league of nations which will be the foundation for growth and development into a new era in our international relations.”