Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 December 1919 — REPUBLICAN JACK RABBITS [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICAN JACK RABBITS

We have blamed the Democratic administration and the Democratic party for failure to provide for national defense. Now it Is the Republican majority In congress which is ready to reject universal service. The administration asks for It. The Republicans will not have It. The house committee on military affairs, it is reported in Washington, will recommend legislation for a regular army of 300,00 u men and 18,000 officers and nothing more. General Pershing recommended the regular army of 350,000 AND universal service. Secretary Baker asked for a regular army of 500,000 AND universal service. Pershing the soldier and Baker the secretary of war, a man by instinct and principle a pacifist, asked for universal service for the protection of the country and the development of citizenship. A committee controlled by Republicans is ready to recommend to a congress controlled by Republicans a program which contains the least recommended by Pershing and ignores the essential principle of national defense. This evasion of duty, this desertion of national need and of military common sense is by the party which has devoted years to criticism of a Democratic administration’s pacific courses. The Democratic party has been, by tradition, principle, and conviction, opposed to such a nationalizing device as a citizen army controlled by tbe federal government. But the administration Is converted and is patriotic enough and sensible enough to ask congress to establish universal military service. The party which turns tail and runs is the Republican party. With a political timidity which does not know shame, the Republicans who control congress are ready to throw national consideration aside and seek the safety of their own skins in the speed of their own legs. A presidential campaign impendsThe Republicans are afraid of It. The Democratic administration may be afraid of it, but that has not prevented a recommendation for a national military policy. The Democratic administration presents the issue. The Republican congress takes to cover. The Republicans in congress prove- themselves to be Hons in criticism and jack rabbits in performance. —Chicago Tribune (Rep.)