Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1919 — VANISHING LEADERSHIP [ARTICLE]

VANISHING LEADERSHIP

The Republican leadership in. the senate,, much more than in the tiouee or anywhere else, has been intrusted by events with the task of preparing the Republican presidential campaign of 1920. It has chosen to make the peace treaty the issue, so far as it lies in the power of >any organized political body to telbthe people what shall be the issue. At the present moment it seems evident that this leadership has made great mistakes, that it has failed to present its chosen issue in any way satisfactory to the people, and that it has rent asunder its own party, says the New York Times in an editorial appraisal of the political effects of the present fight in the senate. The vote on the Fall amendments plainly showed that Senator Lodge cannot control his own party and that Senators MoCumber and Me-

Nary come nearer to speaking with the authentic voice of Republicanism than he does. He renders thanks to high heaven for having been able to collect 30 votes for the Fall amendments. If this makes him thankful, then he is a true descendant of those early Puritans who celebrated Thanksgiving day even when the crops had failed and ” the Indians were warring against them. From the beginning the rival leaders, Lodge and Hitchcock, have made contrasting and irreconcilable claims about their strength. The vote on the Fall amendments shows that up to date, at least, Mr. Hitchcock was much nearer the truth. It leaves Mr. Lodge congratulating himself that he could muster 30 votes. There are other votes to come, but the showing ons this initial test will tend to inspire confidence in Mr. Hitchcock’s statements and in his modest but forceful leadership. It will not tend greatly to Increase, or rather restore, confidence in the statesmanship and leadership of Senator Lodge, who has managed singularly to decrease himself in stature ever since the primogeniture of Republicanism passed from the hand of Theodore Roosevelt into his own. The west is against him, and we doubt if the east would express itself differently if it had a chance. His is a losing cause. Are we mistaken in thinking that Mr. Lodge’s real concern is not whether he can beat the peace treaty and the league of nations, but whether he can hold on to the state of Massachusetts, the state of David I. Walsh and Winthrop Murray Crane?