The Commoner
DECEMBER, 1915
11
f 1
that his program is right. He knows that I am
thoroughly convinced that it is wrong. He
knows, too, that my convictions on the subject
are deep and sincere and that I have given the
subject mature jstudy and thought and have
reasons for my position. I had a moBt cordial
and pleasant interview with him for an hour and
a half on November the 8th. On this question
we simply agreed to disagree, both expressing
regrets (and, I am sure, sincere regrets) that I
could not support the program. My inability
to agree with him and my opposition to this pro
gram do not interfere with the pleasant, cor
dial relations that exist between us. As ho said
in his Manhattan speech, and assured me, as
well as others, this question IS NOT A PARTY
QUESTION BUT ONE FOR THE THOUGHT
AND CONVICTION OP EACH INDIVIDUAL.
The President knows, too, that in all matters
before my committee, and especially in raising
sufficient revenue to finance all appropriations
and in every effort that he shall make to redeem
the pledges our party made to the people, he
shall have my hearty and earnest co-operation.
I fear that neither the President nor the secre
tary of the navy, with their other manifold du
ties, have possibly had the time to give the de
tailed study and thought to the subject which
many of us have. I recall that the President, in
his letter of July 21st to the secretary of the
navy (which, by-the-way, I had not seen until
some time after my letter in September to the
New York World ), asked for advice of naval
experts, saying: "I want their advice, a program
by them formulated in the most definite terms."
I can not help believing that the military and
naval experts have badly advised and misin
formed both the President and the secretary of
the navy. Naval officers or experts are not com
petent judges of the policy which this country
should pursue. Their very training of thought
and their ambition are to see only one function
of the government that of the navy. They
know what will gratify their ambition. They
know what they want. From the time a man
enter,s Annapolis, as long as he lives, his ambi
tion is to command battleships, the magnificent
floating sea palaces, and battleship fleets. This
consumes his thought. It is natural, therefore,
and inevitable that he should consider the needs
of the country in accordance with his wants and
ambitions. The naval expert knows how to build
or superintend the building of ships and how
to fight them when built. That is his thought,
his profession, his ambition. Since the general
navy board was established in 1903, every pres
ident and every secretary of the navy, except
one, has recognized these propensities and lim
itations of the naval officers or naval experts,
and every president since 1903, since the naval
board's first recommendations, and every sec
retary, except one, until now, have rejected and
declined to accept their recommendations, and
no congress has ever yet approved them. Mr.
Roosevelt did not accept them. Only one of his
secretaries, Mr. Metcalf, did. Neither did Mr.
Taft, nor his secretary of the navy, accept their
recommendations at any time during his four
years term. Both Mr. Wilson and Mr. Secretary
Daniels in 1913 declined to accept their recom
mendations. They declined again to accept their
expert opinions in 1914, five months after the
European war had begun. They both opposed
their recommendations and so did Admiral
Fletcher, the highest active officer in the navy,
commander of the Atlantic fleet. But now the
papers denounce me as an "idiot," as a "traitor
to my country, to my party and to the adminis
tration" if I do not swallow at one gulp the
recommendations of the naval experts, because
the President and his secretary of the navy, for
the first time, accept them.
7 -THE REGULAR, ORDERLY, NORMAL
PROGRAM:
At the last session of congress (this year) the
President, the secretary of the navy, Admiral
Fletcher, and other naval commanders, and the
democrats in congress opposed the program of
the Hobsons, Gardners and other jingoes (much
smaller than the present proposed program).
The policy of .the administration was summed
up before the Naval committee in the words or
the secretary of the navy "It would BE MOST
UNWISE for us to act today in any particular as
we would not have acted if there was no wa,n
My theory IS THAT OUR COUNTRY OUGHT TO
BE CARRYING ON ITS REGULAR ORDERLY
NORMAL PROGRAM AS TO THE NAVY. With
our policies and our American ideas I think the
policy recommended in my report and adopted
by the last session of congress (and recommend-
? i . thlflJseJ8sIn) is the steady development
J?l nSew,!TMEBT8 THB NEEDS OP
1HB COUNTRY." The democrats supported
xnat policy. It was enacted into law. This same
Rrltti havo hcretoforo shown, is MAKING
2HSTI BIQGHR, STRONGER AND MORE
EFFICIENT THAN EVER BEFORE THE
STRONGEST IN THE WORLD, except that of
Great Britain.
rrJL,a my undoubting conviction, that it is moat
UNWISE AND DANGEROUS at this timo, es
pecially under the present circumstances, to
abandon that policy and adopt tho big, enormous,
revolutionary program proposed.
8. WHY MY OPPOSITION TO THE PROGRAM
AS AN INDIVIDUAL AND NOT AS
MAJORITY LEADER
It is not a party or partisan question. Tho
President so declares. Everybody knows it is
not. It is one for each individual member to do
cido as to his vote for himself. Tho majority
members of the Ways and Means committee, in
the first instance, make up tho committee assign
ments of tho house. I am chairman of tho com
mittee, which carries with it tho position of ma
jority leader. I shall not use such positions in
influencing in any way any member on tho ques
tion. ThoBo who oppose my position and those
who endorso it will bo treated alike as to their
assignments to committees and as to all other
matters which I, as such chairman and leader,
and the members of the house, individually and
collectively, are concerned.
AFTER THIRTY-ONI3 YEARS
If
't
0.- THE ATTACKS OF THE NEW YORK
HERALD:
This paper (whoso owner, years ago, disdain
ing the fellowship of Americans, abandoned his
native country to live amid the high llfo of
Paris, and who, by cable from Paris, dictates its
policy) has been fighting tho democratic party
nearly twenty years. This is the same paper
which only a few months ago, to show its disgust
of and contempt for President Wilson, while
with consummate statesmanship ho was steering
the country safely through its greatest crisis,
loudly exclaimed "Oh, for a Roosevelt in tho
White house!"
The purported interview by its Washington
correspondent with me, published in its issue of
November 10th, parts of which have been pub
lished in every issue since, is a PURE FABRI
CATION, A DELIBERATE FALSEHOOD. MAN
UFACTURED IN THE HERALD'S OFFICE IN
NEW YORK FOR THE PURPOSE of forming a
basis for its succeeding attacks and sensational
stories. No such interview ever occurred. I
never saw or spoko to its correspondent before
its publication. After reading it in the HERALD,
I saw and asked its Washington correspondent
if he sent such an interview to the HERALD. He
said he had not and knew nothing about it until
ho saw it published in tho HERALD. I never
made a reference in the remotest way to any
one in Washington or elsewhere as to the "senti
ment in my district" or as to "the folks back
homo." It knew, too, or could have known, as
Its Washington correspondent knew, that I did
not "return to my district because of its expo
sures of the sentiment of my district." I re
turned the day I intended to return when three
days before I went to Washington.
In conclusion: To differ with the President,
to differ with my friends, In and out of congress,
In the heat of the moment to be severely criti
cised, and sometimes denounced by them, gives
me not only exceeding regret, but much pain and
"distress. However, after having given the sub
ject much study and thought, being once on the
Naval Affairs committee, and interested for
years in naval subjects, I can not support the
program. In deciding on this course I knew full
well that a part of the penalty which I would
have to undergo would be the criticism, the rid
icule, the denunciation, the mlsrepresentatloa
and he libeling of myself by the press from on.
end of the country to the other. Having the
annroval of my judgment and conscience, after
mature study and thought, and Impelled by a
Sense of duty, I take the step, mattering not the
"-sequences, political or g-
November 20th, 1915.
We are told in some quarters that the reptib
lican campaign in 1916 will be a campaign for a
l?!np?q administration of the government in
th interest o business. Which is just another
s?raw showing how easy a victory the demo
crat party has ahead of it next year.
Tho French havo a saying, "look first for tht
woman,' an epigram of tho shrewd Parisian de
tectives, who found some woman's influence be
behind each shrewd criminal.
But why not turn to tho noblor, higher Ira-,
pulses and activities of man for Illustration?
Whenever Inspiration and aspiration join to
impel man to that supreme, continued effort that
is tho foundation of great doeds, rest assured
that the loving, enrnest devotion of woman is
somewhere down tho lino of endeavor. Tea
thousand men lovo women; half a thousand,
possibly, lovo woman, and ono lores a woman.
One of these men was recently attending a
great banquet given in his honor. IIo was om
his feet, holding his audlcuco all In breathless
silcnco with matchless oratory and superb per
sonal magnetism. It was obuorved that he
glanced repeatedly at his watch. Suddenly he
paused and said:
"I would like to havo my friends bore drink
a toast with mo. I would drink to tho one who
has borne more than half of my burdons and
who deserves more than half of the praise; to a
bride, a wlfo, a mother and a grandmother my
wifo. Just 31 years ago at this minute 1 stood
at tho altar and was married to the woman who
has since that tlmo been my greatest worldly
help."
Some of thoso who heard this wonderful trib
ute, of a wonderful man to a wonderful womai
remembered a wonderful scene. A great politic
al party was In convention, fixing Its policies
and selecting Ita leaders. A young and compar
atively unknown man rose to speak. Back is
a gallery sat his faithful wifo, his comrade, his
partner. She was his mentor, his guide, she
listened and he spoko to her. As his words af
fected her, ho knew It must affect his hearers,
and his cloquenco guided by her loving under
standing, swopt like a cyclono through that as
semblage, overturning schemes and schisms and
selfish ambitions, like chaff and made William
Jennings Bryan tho standard bearer of his party.
Throughout his career of power and useful
ness he has found guidance, solace and council
with her who has been his helpmato and his
comrade; how much he owes to her no outsider
may ever know more than In hin tribute to her
who has so loyally and so lovingly lived that
grandly simple declaration of Ruth, in that
sweetest idyl of tbc sacred story. "Entreat me
not to leave thee, for whither thou gocst I will
go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy
people shall bo my people and thy God ray God."
It Is woman's absolute faith In her "man" that
makes her his true helpmeet, more than her
counsel or advice or her wisdom In her loving
sympathy, her tender confidence in him; she is
his city of sanctuary in her unshaken affection
and faith when the world seems darkest.
A true, strong woman onco wrote "Lover Mine,
Oh, Heart of Me, each night I pray for your suc
cess and happiness, that you may find joy la
helping those others that need you, that you may
climb and climb and win love and honor and es
teem; that your life shall be as sweet and pure anal
clean and strong as my love and belief in yon."
Could any real manly man fall to respond te
such an appeal?
A little leaven, leaveneth tho whole lump,
and what lump mere man is until love has leav
ened him.
Tho deepest, holiest Impulse of womanhood Li
her maternity, and that is deepest in her love
of the man whom pure affection has fused to ker
heart to heart and soul to soul, forever.
Such a woman said to another a woman os
life's threshold:
"Some day you'll love a man. Ton might as
well die unless yon do! But you'll really love
him after you have your children. It may eves
be long after. It isn't having children that
makes a woman, I don't care what the world
says about it! They prepare you to love tke
man. They cease to need you so much; but ke
needs you more and more. And after the child
ren have deepened you, the thing will come over
you. The mother who thought she had speat
herself, rises; she is resurrected. Then she
turns, mothers a man! She mothers him as she
could not have mothered any child for the duty
Is left out and all the responsibility. It is sheer,
beautiful, generous giving."
How deeply the world is indebted to the abid
ing love of Mrs. William Jennings Bryan none
may know, but we honor him tho more that be
Is big enough a man to pay public tribute ta her,
and whenever we find a man at the fore-front,
we shall "Look first for the woman," for all the
world loves a lover. Shelby County Leader.
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