A PACIFIST GONE TO WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3067, 1 May 1917, Page 4

A PACIFIST GONE TO WAR

The adoption by Congress of an Army Bill providing for the institution of conscription is the most important step America has taken since she declared war on Germany. It affords a final proof that, given the opportunity, she will take no limited part in the war. It is only just to President Wilson, who in the,past_laid himself so much open to criticism, to note that the wholehearted way in whioh Amelica is developing its war. programme seems to be very largely duo to his inspiration and control. In the case of the conscription issue as in others the Presidential influence made itself heavily felt, and the outcome was that, with the country and Congress much divided and a number oi conflicting proposals competing for support, the measure favoured by the President was passed by overwhelming majorities in both Houses of the Legislature. While the .President's command of the situation is strikingly attested in. his. influence on war policy it is indicated also in the fact that there is no visible movement towards a coalition ol_political parties in America, though as matters stand in Congress they are as nearly as possiblo in a state of balance. In the Senate there aro 54 Democrats and 42 Republicans, but in the House of '.Representatives each of the main, parties holds 215 seats, and the five remaining seats are held by independent members. This state of affairs is without precedent.. Thore have been other ' Congresses' in which third parties or independents held the balance of power, but the House of Representatives of the Sixty-fifth Congress is alone in giving no party a plurality, however 1 narrow. The position is one which would have compelled any but a strong President to effect measures of compromise and probably to reconstruct his Cabinet, but Mr. Wilson up to the present has taken no such course, and has had no ficulty in obtaining support for his policy measures. He has met the situation /by assuming practically dictatorial powers, which in theory it is iinrjoSsible for any President to assume under tho American Constitution, but which it is in fact open to any President to take upon himself provided ho is solidly backed by public opinion. If Germany took the state of political parties in America as an index of American policy in war she must feci herself cruelly deceived in the turn events are actually taking. The truth now made manifest is that the state of. parties counts for comparatively little in relation to the war. The Amorican people were waiting 'for a lead, and they aro now gotting it from their formorly pacifist President in such a fashion as must chill Germany to the heart.