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The New

REPUBLIC

VOLUME XVII

Editorial Notes...

Leading Editorials

A Journal of Opinion

New York, Saturday, November 2, 1918

Contents

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The general strike which held up last week's
New Republic has been called off, pending the find-
ing of the War Labor Board. The delayed number
is therefore being issued with the current one.

most. The military victory has been won and the
Republicans know it. National and international
political issues are coming to the surface. The Re-
publicans would have used a majority in Congress
to frustrate Mr. Wilson's political measures. He
did not, as Chairman Hays says, "impugn Republi-
can loyalty and deny their patriotism." He did
not "insult every loyal Republican in the land."
He merely asked the voters not to elect to the
Congress a Republican majority which, as the Re-
publicans proclaim, would have done its best to
prevent his leadership from being effective.

O question of loyalty is involved by this issue

between the President and the Republican

leaders. The Republicans as the party in opposi-
tion have every right to oppose the President's pro-
gramme, except in so far as they have already
either silently or expressly consented to it. But
Mr. Wilson as the executive leader of the nation.
is equally entitled to safeguard his programme
against a plain threat of future obstruction. He is
the only possible legal leader of the American peo-
ple during the next two years. If the voters elect
a majority in the next Congress hostile to him, the
nation will at one of the most critical moments in
history be practically without an effective and re-
sponsible government. The President was obliged
to ask for a vote of continued popular confidence
as a matter of governmental convenience and per-
sonal prestige. The Republicans are no doubt
placed by his appeal in a trying position. During
the war they have had all the disadvantages and
none of the advantages of participating in a coali-
tion government, and as soon as the war is over

the President pushes them aside. But they should
charge the responsibility for this necessity, not
on the President but upon the Constitution. As
long as the Chief Executive is irremovable for four
years except by impeachment, and is legally inde-
pendent of Congress, the responsibility for the gov-

9151

ernment of the country is necessarily lodged in his person. He is obliged to appeal for the support needed to redeem his responsibility. He can no longer count on it from both parties. He must seek it, consequently, for and from his own party.

TH

HE Republicans will commit a grave mistake in case they continue to conduct their quarrel with the President in the spirit shown by Chairman Hays' recent shriek of defiance. When he declares that Mr. Wilson proposes "to give to Germany out of hand the fruits of a victory greater than she could win by fighting for a hundred years" he is "he going far too far. The enormous majority of his readers will contrast the greatness of Mr. Wilson's services to the cause of world democracy and his prodigious reputation abroad with the feeble intemperance and the despicable falseness of the accusation. They will infer that such an indictment against President Wilson could have been uttered only by a cheap and reckless partisan hack and they will reflect that a cause which is officially defended by such wild misrepresentation is likely to be morally dubious. The Republicans should beware. They are in danger of becoming committed to a wholly reactionary policy both at home and abroad, and they are in danger of conducting the agitation on behalf of their policy in the spirit of fanatical and febrile violence. If they succumb to this danger they will expose themselves, from such a skillful and resourceful political fighter as Mr. Wilson, to a crushing rejoinder. The Republicans possess all the materials which they need for carrying on a vital and thoroughgoing political controversy with the President. It is important for the education of American public opinion that they vigorously oppose his programme and propose an equally realistic programme of their own. But if they think they are fighting effectively by accusing him of unconditionally surrendering to Germany and of pandering to Marxian socialism and Bolshevism, they are egregiously mistaken. They cannot agitate against such a formidable antagonist as the President unless they "demobilize " of their feelings and "mobilize" their brains.

A

some

USTRIA'S hands are up. That is the plain meaning of the reply of the Austro-Hungarian government to the President's note of October 19th. The Dual Empire has formally accepted the necessity of dismemberment implied in the President's intimation that the CzechoSlovaks and Jugo-Slavs are to gain their independence. In one respect the Austro-Hungarian government goes farther than was required. "It adheres also to the same point of view contained

in the last note upon the rights of the Austro-Hu garian peoples, especially those of the Czech Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs." There is no need t hold up negotiations to ascertain whether Austria Hungary agrees to a democratic determination o the rights of the Rumanians in Transylvania an the Poles in Galicia. She has signed an agreemen in blank. Is there a trap here which we must un cover by further fighting? Not even the most acut trap diviners are asserting this. Austria-Hungar is not sparring for time, because time is not desideratum in a state where events are rapidly going from bad to worse. Nor does anyone see an profit in keeping the war going for the sake of killing more Austro-Hungarians. There are mor Czecho-Slovaks and the like in Austria's army than Germans and Magyars. If we were to annihilato that army we should kill more friends than foes.

G

ERMANY'S case is more complicated. That

world or in Germany questions for a moment. But she is defeated nobody either in the Allied whether her hands are up or not cannot be asserted with confidence until we see what kind of armistice terms she will accept. The general character of the terms that will be imposed are known to all the world. They will make Germany impotent for resistance to whatever final terms of peace the Allies choose to dictate. If Germany is really ready to accept such an armistice, fighting is practically at an end. With the exception of a few romantic world cares to get by fighting what can be had withenthusiasts for blood letting, nobody in the Allied out fighting. But can what we want be had without fighting? There is no doubt that the majority of the German people would accept the Allied terms without reservation. They are sick of the war, sick of military prestige, sick of autocratic tutelage. They have won initial victories in Prussian electoral reform, in transferring power to the Reichstag, above all in deposing Ludendorff-an enterprise which even the Kaiser would not have dared to undertake if the General But constitu

Staff still enjoyed its old power.

tionalism in Germany trembles under the fear of a military coup d'état. There will be no safety either for German liberalism or for the world until the German military machine has been dismantled. That is what the armistice will accomplish.

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