Mr. Wilson offered us a war
in which, of course, we sought nothing and found, at the end of it,
not the customary few trifles of territory, but the whole
embarrassing, beggarly world adhering to us. The thumbscrew and the
rack could not wring from Mr. Hughes the admission that we are
after anything more lofty than our interests.
One of the present Secretary's "Don'ts" of similar derivation is
"Don't have a fight with the Senate unless you make sure first that
you have the public with you."
Mr. Hughes does not run away from fights; he likes them. But
believing God to be on the side with the most battalions, and
intending scrupulously to observe this last "Don't," in order to
secure the necessary popular support, he is as Secretary of State,
"handing the government back to the people," just as he did when
governor,--a little less self-consciously, perhaps, a little less
noisily, but still none the less truly.
He is the most democratic Secretary of State this Country has ever
had, and this includes Bryan to whose school, as has just been
remarked, he originally belonged. If we are ever to have democratic
control of foreign relations, it will be by the methods of Mr.
Hughes, because of the training and beliefs of Mr. Hughes, and as a
consequence of the most undemocratic control of foreign relations
which our Constitution attempted to fasten upon us.
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