Although in a minority and excluded from participation in administration councils, the Republican leaders in Congress and out were able to modify to some extent radical and dangerous tendencies in legislation, to neutralize the errors of the majority and to perfect meas ures which had possibilities of merit. The Federal Reserve Act of 23 Dec. 1913 as enacted carried into effect many of the changes in our banking system recommended by the Monetary Commission, and in its final form it had the benefit of the knowledge and experience of Senator Weeks, who at that time was the recognized Republican authority in the Senate on financial questions. The amendments which he induced the Senate to incorporate in the original bill framed by the administration and forced through the House, were of incalculable value in eliminating provisions which contained the germs of currency inflation and future panics.
The Underwood Tariff Act was an expres sion of classic Democratic theories — a tariff for revenue, not protection. It brought on indus trial doubt and depression, arrested manufac turing production and led to unemployment and distress all through the industrial North. The outbreak of war in Europe nullified the evils of the act, since the peaceful and exporting industrial energies of Europe were transferred to the industries of war and destruction and gave to neutral America an artificial but highly profitable market for all her products and stopped the western flow of competitive products.
The plainly-announced purposes of the Wil son administration and its intolerance of ad vice and criticism had one wholesome political effect — it made a solid and united party of all Republican factions. The National Con vention of June 1916, at Chicago, nominated for President former Gov. Charles E. Hughes, then on the Supreme Court bench, and for Vice President, Charles W. Fairbanks. The Demo cratic National Convention at Saint Louis, a week later, renominated Wilson and Marshall. For over three years the American people had been fed on the strange doctrines of pacifism, internationalism and socialism. While Europe was at war, we were at peace, and through the very fact of war abroad were rich and prosperous at home. At the same time we were earning the contempt and of all the warring nations. American citizens had suf fered much in Mexico, while the government pursued its policy of 'watchful waiting," and now were slaughtered on the high seas without any vigorous or effective steps being taken to protect American interests. Republican
leaders, like Roosevelt, Lodge and Weeks, and military leaders like Gen. Leonard Wood, saw that we might at any time be drag ged into war in order to maintain our national self-respect, and urged insistently that we put ourselves in readiness, but the administration, preaching neutrality and neglecting even ordi nary preparations, went to the country with the boast that Wilson had 'kept us out of war" and carried the election by a narrow margin of the popular vote in States which were affected by this cry. The Wilson administration had undi vided responsibility and unlimited power from the time war was declared—modified only by constructive criticism by the Senate of inefficient and extravagant control of war activities, and when the Congressional elections of 1918 were at hand, the President issued an appeal to the electorate to return a Democratic Senate and House because 'the leaders of the minority in the present Congress have unquestionably been pro-war but they have been anti-admin istration"; because 'unity of government is as necessary now in civil actions as it is upon the field of battle," and because 'the return of a Republican majority to either House of the Congress would moreover be interpretative on the other side of the water as a repudiation of my leadership." The response of the coun try was emphatic and unmistakable. The Con gress elected was Republican in both branches, and the President within a month after the election set sail for Europe to appear there in the Peace Conference as the spokesman of American opinion and purpose.
The Republican party from its beginning has been distinctly an American party, a party of constructive ability and of moral purpose. In power it has been rich in achievement and in a minority it has been unselfishly loyal to the best interests of the United States. The war with Germany is the first war since the United States became a nation in which the party out of power has stood unswervingly for the successful prosecution of the war and by its attitude has forced the party in control to greater efforts than those in power would have preferred. The most compact and force ful summary of its principles to-day was set forth in the Middlesex Resolutions accepted by the Republicans of Massachusetts justhefore the signing of the armistice which marked the end of the great European War. This is the creed: To carry on the war untanchingly to unconditional surrender.