NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

OCTOBER, 1916

FOR PRESIDENT

CHARLES EVANS HUGHES

BY THE EDITOR

I. "FAITHFUL ARE THE WOUNDS—”

SIMULTANEOUSLY with the inauguration of Woodrow Wilson as President of the United States on March 4, 1913, we quoted-in Harper's Weekly-the words of George William Curtis succinctly defining the primary obligation of a public journal, to wit:

The press is never a more beneficent power than when it shows the country that, while loyal to a party and its policy, it is more loyal to honor and patriotism. It is the palladium of liberty because it is the only power in a free country that can alone withstand and overthrow the crafty conspiracy of political demagogues. If it does not lead, it is because it chooses to follow; it is because it does not know that no office is so great as that of molding opinion which makes parties and Presidents; that no patronage is so powerful as the just fear of an unquailing criticism brought home to every word and every act of every public man, and commending its judgment to the intelligence and the conscience of every citizen.

We continued,-speaking for ourselves:

Harper's Weekly reaffirms the principles of its great editor. It regrets nothing that it has done; it rejoices in the re-establishment in power of the party which should and can be great, liberal, and Copyright, 1916, by NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW CORPORATION. All Rights Reserved. VOL. CCIV.-No. 731 31

truly Democratic; it feels that it has peculiar reason to wish for the Administration of President Wilson the greatest conceivable measure of success

To that end and in that hope, as a natural sequence of the result accomplished, it now resumes the exercise of its normal and highest functions as an independent Journal of Civilization, free and glad to commend generously all that it deems praiseworthy, and equally free and ready to criticize frankly or condemn unsparingly whatever it may adjudge deserving of censure.

From this day forward the attitude of Harper's Weekly toward the Administration of President Wilson will differ in no respect from its attitude toward the Administration of his predecessors.

How faithfully THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, the successor of Harper's Weekly as a political factor, has maintained the pledge then given may be left safely to the discriminating judgment of its readers. For ourselves, while conceding the possibility of having erred in some instances, we assert with no whit less assuredness than the President declared of his handling of the "perplexing business" of Mexico that there has been no fault "in purpose or object." Indeed, if we may speak with full candor at the risk of seeming to be unduly self-gratified, we find a record of public service without material blemish. If we have erred at all, the laxity has been on the side of lenience, due to what we regarded as "a peculiar reason to wish for the Administration of President Wilson the greatest conceivable measure of success" and to a feeling that exceptional consideration should in fairness be accorded inexperience. We have not cavilled at the Administration. And such criticisms as we have made from time to time have been, in truth, more than helpful; they have been constructive, never the contraryas the recalling of a few notable instances will clearly show.

The united opposition now appeals to the country to dislodge the Administration upon the grounds of criminal blundering with respect to Mexico, of fatuous timidity in dealing with belligerent Powers, of flagrant violation of the merit system, notably in the diplomatic service, of betraying popular government, of profligacy and of inefficiency. Other issues are raised, but these are universally recognized as the vulnerable points in the record and the least susceptible of successful defense. Against the acts which made possible the creation of each and every one we protested earnestly and warned unceasingly while they were in the

making and while there was yet time to avoid pitfalls tending to disastrous consequences.

Discriminatory class legislation was proposed at the very beginning of the special session in April, 1913, when at the behest of Mr. Samuel Gompers a "rider" was attached to the Appropriation Bill forbidding the use of any part of the money allotted for the enforcement of anti-trust laws "in the prosecution of any organization or individual for entering into any combination or agreement having in view the increasing of wages, shortening of hours, or bettering the condition of labor." Promptly and as earnestly as lay within our power-on May 19, 1913, while the iniquitous measure was awaiting his signature or veto-we appealed to the President in an Open Letter in Harper's Weekly to stand bravely for the traditional Democratic principle of "Equal Rights for All,"-but in vain. In reviewing "Six Months. of Wilson" in the succeeding November number of THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW, We were obliged to record the fact that, after six weeks of deliberation, he signed the Bill, lamely excusing himself upon the ground, forsooth, that he "could not separate the unjustifiable provision" from the remainder of the Act. Whereupon we warned him that, unless he could and should "control and chain the forces which he himself had unloosed," the country soon would face “a determined struggle for class domination whose outcome every patriotic citizen must contemplate with the gravest foreboding,"—a prediction now, alas, fulfilled.

This abandonment of principle was the genesis of the recent successful drive of the Labor Unions which Mr. Hughes rightly designates as the "paramount issue" of the campaign. If its creation shall eventuate in the defeat of Mr. Wilson, he will have only his contemptuous disregard of the foresight of his friends and his pitiable surrender of his own convictions to blame.

As early as December, 1913, we urged upon the President the need of grave consideration of the probable outcome of his meddlesome and dictatorial attitude towards the de facto Government of Mexico. After granting with pride and satisfaction that nobody here or abroad and "nobody in Mexico who need be considered" questioned his high purpose or suspected his good faith, we could not ignore the palpable