Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 43, Number 301, 31 October 1918 — Page 13

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THE RICHMOND. PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM THURSDAY, OCT. 31, 1918.

- (Political Advertisement.)

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Democratic

Vice

President

Mar

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It had been the understanding of all true Americans that the war against Germany and her allies was that of the united people of the world's greatest republic against the world's greatest autocracies, but they were disillusioned on that point last spring by the occupant of the second highest office within the gift of the American people, Vice President Thomas R. Marshall, in his speech before the Democratic state convention at . Indianapolis. . , . President Wilson has now issued an open letter to the American voters urging the election of a Democratic Senate and a house of Representatives. Although admitting that "The leaders of the minority (Republicans) in the present Congress have unquestionably been Pro-War." Once more the American people have received assurance this time from the chief executive of the nation, that this is a party war. ..:h, President Wilson, in his astonishing appeal for the repudiation of the Republican candidates for Congress, including all those who rallied to his support on the vital war measures, to insure their passage, when he had been deserted by many of the Democratic congressional leaders, in no way discriminates between Democrats who have been pro-war and those who have been anti-war. He pleads for the election of all Democrats. The one test of fitness for election to congress, as applied by President Wilson in his letter to the American people, is based on loyalty to himself, not loyalty to the republic. He demands me defeat of all pro-war men if they have been anti-administration. What does the President mean when he speaks o: Republican leaders being "pro-war" but "anti-admbistration?"

He means that when the War,Department wasmotcbeing conducted with required efficiency, that whenthe collapse of the4iraaft program

was threatened, the Kepublican leaders and that tearless Democrat, Senator Lhamberlain, or Uregon, conducted investigations and insisted, upon efficiency. "He means," as Col. Roosevelt said in his New York address this week, "that when the Republican leaders found that nothing effective was being done in shipbuilding they insisted that the work be speeded up. The entire offense in Mr. Wilson's eyes is that they had demanded that efficiency, waste and extravagance be remedied. Such a demand he treats as 'anti-administration.' " ' Contrast, Mr. Voter, the loyal and unwavering support given by the Republicans in the present War Congress to all measures pertaining to the winning of the War to the actions olvtKe';iPemocrat-' ic leadership in Congress during the Spanish-American Wai;; I I I The Democrats, at the time of the War with Spain, through their party organization, were against the war and they opposed the peace of overwhelming victory which the American people had so justly earned. The Democratic leadership at that time opposed the necessary war loans. The Democratic members, in 1 898, by a vote of 1 24 to 6 in the House, and by a vote, of 27 to 7 in the Senate, voted against the Spanish-American War Revenue bill. Did President Lincoln appeal to the people of the North during the Civil War for the election of Republican Congress? In March,, 1863, President Lincoln advocated sending to Congress, "unconditional surrender supporters of the war,", making no reference to any party; and in June' of that year, in answer to some correspondents ,who signed themselves "Democrats," he expressed his regrets because they had not called themselves "American Citizens," saying, "In this time of national peril I would have preferred to meet you upon a level one step higher than any party platform." In August, in the only political letter he wrote that year, he appealed to "all those who; maintain. unconditionJ devotion to the Union," and in this appeal he explicidy included his own political friends with those of his political enemies, "whom no partisan malice or-partisan hope can make false to the nation's life." He thus explicitly based his appeal to pro-war men without asking about their attitude toward himself. ' ::;Yi'. y;v-':;::V"7. , . "'-- r-: -; v . - ; This answers the claim of the Democratic organization that President Wilson, occupying, a position corresponding to that of President Lincoln, follows in the footsteps of the Martyred Emancipator. Lincoln made no party test. He appealed to all loyal men of all parties. Wilson asks for the defeat of Pro-War Republicans and for the election of Anti-War Democrats. A Republican vote next Tuesday is a vote for the continuation of the war to a decisive and enduring peace, and a vote for the intelligent handling of the many perplexing problems of reconstruction and reorganization which are to follow in the wake of the war . A vote to protect you from the disaster of "Free Trade" following the war."

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