The New VOLUME XVII Editorial Notes... Leading Editorials A Journal of Opinion New York, Saturday, November 2, 1918 Contents The general strike which held up last week's RESIDENT WILSON is certainly to be con- gratulated on the enemies he has made, the issue on which their enmity is based and the violence with which they express it. If he needed any justification for breaking the party truce, the Republicans have furnished it after the event by the clear evidence they have given of their irre- concilable and embittered personal hostility to him. It is not only true, as we point out elsewhere, that they had already broken the party truce in all but name, but it is obvious they were merely waiting for an opportunity of turning on him and of mak- ing it difficult, if not impossible, for him to con- duct the government of the country. Undoubtedly they would not have become obstructionists as long most. The military victory has been won and the O question of loyalty is involved by this issue between the President and the Republican leaders. The Republicans as the party in opposi- the President pushes them aside. But they should 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. |