Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 47, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 September 1920 — FALSE LEADERSHIP [ARTICLE]

FALSE LEADERSHIP

Under its present leadership the Republican party has been subjected to great humiliation. It is now, as is becoming clearer every day, ruled by a small minority of ita membership, which has succeeded in reversing or repudiating its policy on the great issue of the day—the league of nations. Johnson, Borah and the few other irreconcilablos oi biter-enders, have had their way, and the candidate is apparently more fearful of offending these than, anxious to please the great majority of the party. Rarely in our politics has there been such a sudden anti complete abandonment of position, such a startling shifting of ground. The results that have followedwere inevitable and might easily have been foreseen. Through the rejection of old, and the adoption of new principles, men have .been attracted to the party who never were Republicans, and would not be Republicans today had not the policy of the party been modified by the leaders to meet their views. Them are many Republicans, friends of the league of nations, who are today asking whether the support of William Randolph Hearst was not too dearly bought. It is not many years ago that Hearstism was denounced by Theodore Roosevelt,

speaking through the lips of EUhu Root, as having been largely responsible for the murder of William McKinley. Yet Hearst Is, through his newspapers, advocating the election of Senator Harding. Only a few days ago the GermanAmerlcan Citizens’ League, the successor* of the old German-Amerioan Alliance, whose activities have hardly been forgotten, declared for the Republican candidate. Thus it is giving voice to its opposition to the war, and to the league of nations. To this array must now be added George Sylvester Vierick, editor of the Fatherland, and later of the American Monthly. Vierick championed Germany against this country up to the very moment of our entering the war, and is again talking and writing in the old strain. To him the league of nations Is the “league of damnations.” There Is nothing in common between these men and organizations and genuine Republicanism. But there is much in common between them and the Johnson wing and the present influence now unhappily in control of the party. We have even been told that we did not “declare war” on Germany, this being the idea of our own Senator Watson. And in his remarks in the senate on what all supposed was a declaration of war, which Senator Harding quoted in his speech last Saturday, the senator said:

I vote for this joint resolution to make war; not a war thrust upon us, if I could choose the language of the resolution, but a war declared in response to affronts, etc. Thus Senator Harding did not believe at the time, though the resolution said so, nor did he believe last Saturday, that it was “a war thrust upon us.” If we did not declare war, and if war was not thrust on us, the only conclusion seems to be that we thrust it on Germany. any rate Vierick, the German-Ameni-can Citizens’ League, and William Randolph Hearst, who were all strongly pro-German, are for Hard.Ing. We do not believe that these are in any degree representative of genuine Republicanism.—lndianapolis News.