We have held our peace when our women
and children were slain. We have turned away our eyes from the
sight of our brother's woe.
"He kept us out of war," was a paradoxical battle-cry for one who
in a very short time thereafter wished to pose as the winner of
the greatest war in history.
But the battle-cry, it turned out, was used chiefly for political
purposes. The year 1916 was a Presidential year and his opponents
suspected that every thing President Wilson had done at home or
abroad had been planned by him with a view to the effect which it
might have on his reelection. Politicians of all parties saw that
the war was the vital question to be decided by the political
campaign. For the Democrats, Wilson was, of course, the only
candidate; but the Republicans and the Progressives had their own
schism to settle. First of all, they must attempt to reunite and
to present a candidate whom both factions would support; if they
did not, the catastrophe of 1912 would be repeated, and Wilson
would again easily win against two warring Progressive and
Republican candidates.
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