Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1914 — WILSON POLICIES ABE CONDEMNED [ARTICLE]

WILSON POLICIES ABE CONDEMNED

Cummins and Other Republicans Assail President. SPEAK AT CHICAGO BANQUET Senator From lowa and Representative Manahan of Minnesota Attack Proposed Bill to Repeal Canal Act. Chicago, April 10.—President Wilson’s demand for the repeal of the act exempting American coastwise ships from paying Panama canal tolls was made the basis for vigorous attacks upon him by national Republican leaders. l hey were followed by emphatic denuficiation of his foreign policy, his attitude toward the Huerta government in .Mexico and the manner in which he has dealt with congress. Senator Albert B. Cummins of lowa, Representative James Manahan of Minnesota, Representative Simon D. Fess of Ohio and Charles S. Whitman, district attorney of New York, denounced the president’s policies. Three thousand Republican men and women attended the Appomattox day banquet of the Hamilton club. Toll Stand Attacked. Representative Manahan was the first to assail the national executive. His allusion to the Panama tolls question was a passing one, but more bitter than any made by the other speakers, ■ "The repeal of the Panama toll exemption law to sustain the diplomacy of the department of state also will sustain the dividends of the transcontinental railroads,” he announced. “The honor of the high contracting parties’ to the treaty is upheld religiously by the administration; in consequence the high cost of living is likewise upheld irreligiously by excessive freight rate taxes.”

A few minutes later District Attorney Whitman also attacked the administration on the tolls question and on its Mexican policy. Representative Fess confined his attack upon the administration's foreign policy to general terms. Cummins on Tolls. Senator Cummins said: “To repeal the exemption clause under the message of the president and to meet the attitude which a foreign nation has assumed, without a reassertion of our power over coastwise shipping is to put the British construction upon the treaty forever,” he asserted. ”1 confess that it appals me when I_ think of the, consequences, of

that interpretation. If it is the correct one then it would have' been far better if we never had entered upon tke mighty enterprise. It binds us to an obligation that a nation, with the least sense of self-respect cannot and will not observe. hile our flag will be flying there we might as well lift by its side the flags of other nations. We bear the expense of the canal’s construction, its maintenance, ifli operation, its delense. but we have no rights there not held equally by every country on earth. If the president is right, then If we were to have war with Japan, for instance, we would be obliged to pass a Japanese warship through the canal to bombard and desctroy our coasts, and not only so but we would be bound to hold our own warships, that might be there, 24 hours in order to give the enemy full opportunity to ravage our defenseless cities. “This and more is what my vote would mean if I were to east it for the repeal insisted upon by the president, and ! will not so cast it.” . A'