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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 1, 1915)
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. t.iiOjjtiiirf