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Tuesday, October 21, 2014

How Should War Affect Congressional Race? 1918

Because this was also an election year, the three articles below about the Congressional race were on the front page Oct. 24, 1918. At issue: how best to support a president during a time of war.
“Mr. Hudgins Replies to Mr. Ewbank,“ from the French Broad Hustler, Hendersonville, Thursday, Oct. 24, 1918.

Editor of Hustler:
In a remarkable article by E.W. Ewbank published last week in the Hustler he said a vote for Britt means hope for Germany. I propose to vote for Britt and therefore, if Mr. Ewbank’s statement is true, I help Germany, but anyone who says I help Germany tells a confounded lie. Everybody with home I have discussed the said remarkable article believes this contemptible subterfuge is being resorted solely for the purpose of getting Democratic votes.

Now nobody doubts Mr. Ewbank’s hatred for the Huns, and there seems to be rage within his patriotic breast but one passion greater and that is his undying love for Miss Democracy.

Mr. Eubank feels sure he made his point clear, and he did, but now is not the time to use such arguments. Things are too serious and times to strenuous for his finely drawn theory, and the mere political destiny of a candidate now holding an office to which he does not seem to have been honestly elected does not justify the means employed. What does it matter if a Republican Congress is elected? (and, by-the-way, that very thing is going to happen.)

Do Mr. Eubank and The Asheville Citizen mean to say Republicans can not stand back of the President without outraging their feelings to the extent of voting the Democratic ticket? Have not the Republicans in Congress supported the President and essential war measures more strongly compared with numbers, than the democrats? Does Senator Lodge’s utterances printed in bold type above Mr. Ewbank’s misguided statements hold out any hope for Germany? Are not the two statements most consistent and clearly contradictory?

Who, Mr. Editor, is attempting to disgrace and dishonor men who perhaps have sons now in France where at any moment they may be called upon to make the supreme sacrifice for those at home? And who is indirectly, if not purposely, attempting to brand every man and woman who dares not vote the Democratic ticket as holding out hope to Germany? It is hard to imagine what some people would not do in the last extremity to secure political success.

                                --S.H. Hudgins, October 23, 1918

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“Mr. Staton’s Circular,“ from the French Broad Hustler, Hendersonville, Thursday, Oct. 24, 1918.

“A vote for James J. Britt means a vote of hope for the German people. A vote for Weaver means a vote of doom to any hope of a negotiated peace—peace that would suspend a German sword above the people of the earth for all time to come.”

The above paragraph is an extract from an article signed by E.W. Ewbank, who is chairman of the Democratic Executive Committee of Henderson County, and published in the French Broad Hustler of date Oct. 17, 1918. In answer to this charge we submit the following facts:

James J. Britt has delivered 242 patriotic addresses; has contributed liberally to the demands of the government for money with which to carry on the war, and takes pride in the fact that two of his sons are now in the trenches of France battling for the success of the cause for which we and our allies have spent and are continuing to spend so much blood and treasure. We, therefore, ask if it is right, patriotic or fair for any man to make such false and unjust charges against his neighbors who differ with him politically, and especially to attempt to launch a campaign of slander in the closing days of the Fourth Liberty Loan campaign when all men and women, irrespective of party or dreed, are working hard to promote the sale of the bonds from which will come the money to feed and clothe our boys in the service and to furnish them with ammunition and arms in order to make it so that the bloody drac of the Hun will never been seen in our fair land.

We maintain that, of all times, this is the most inopportune time for making charges of the character of those made by Mr. Ewbank in the article from which the above quoted paragraph is taken, or when any dissension should be brought about, or attempted to be brought about, among our people, which would tend in any way to hamper the sale of bonds, or otherwise hinder the successful prosecution of the war.

                                --Chairman Republican Ex. Committee of Henderson County

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“Mr. Ewbank Replies to Critics of His Article in the Hustler“, from the French Broad Hustler, Hendersonville, Thursday, Oct. 24, 1918. Mr. Ewbank made liberal use of capitalization in this article, and I am printing it here as it was printed in the newspaper.

“HURRAH FOR ROOSEVELT!”

That’s what nearly a million independent Democrats cried in the campaign of 1898 when the United States was at war with Spain, and Mr. Roosevelt passionately pleaded the cause of the Republicans in this language:

“REMEMBER THAT WHETHER YOU WILL OR NOT, YOUR VOTES THIS YEAR WILL BE VIEWED BY THE NATIONS OF EUROPE FROM ONE STANDPOINT ONLY. THEY WILL DRAW NO FINE DISTINCTIONS. A REFUSAL TO SUSTAIN THE PRESIDENT THIS YEAR WILL, IN THEIR EYES, BE READ AS A REFUSAL TO SUSTAIN THE WAR AND TO SUSTAIN THE EFFORTS OF OUR PEACE COMMISSIONERS TO SECURE THE FRUITS OF WAR. SUCH A REFUSAL MAY NOT INCONCEIVABLY BRING ABOUT A RUPTURE OF THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS. IT WILL GIVE HEART TO OUR DEFEATED ANTAGONIST; IT WILL MAKE POSSIBLE THE INTERFERENCE OF THOSE DOUBTFUL NEUTRAL NATIONS WHO IN THIS STRUGGLE HAVE WISHED US ILL.”

And these Independent Democrats marched to the polls and gave the Republican ticket a tremendous majority.

Again, hear ex-President Benjamin Harrison in the same campaign:

“If the word goes forth that THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES are standing solidly behind the President (McKinley) the task of the Peace Commissioners will be easy, but if there is a break in the ranks—IF THE DEMOCRATS score a telling victory—if Democratic Senators, Congressmen and Governors are elected, SPAIN WILL SEE IN IT a gleam of HOPE. SHE will TAKE FRESH HOPE, and a renewal of hostilities, MORE WAR, may be necessary to secure to us what we have already won.”

Yet again, read what the New York Sun—President McKinley’s great New York mouth-piece, declared in that memorably campaign of 1898, when we were warring with Spain:

“WE ARE AT WAR WITH SPAIN, PEACE COMMISSIONS AND PEACE JUBILEES TO THE COUNTRARY, NOTWITHSTANDING. UPON PRESIDENT McKINLEY AND HIS ADMINISTRATION ARE YET THE BURDENS AND REPSONSIBILITES OF A STATE OF WAR NOT YET TERMINATED. AND UPON ALL PATRIOTIC CITIZENS OF EVERY POLITICAL PARTY RESTS THE DUTY OF SUPPORTING THE ADMINISTRATION AND SUSTAINING THE NATION’S CAUSE AGAINST ALL FOREIGN ENEMIES, BOTH BY VOICE AND BY VOTE.”

On June 9th, 1864, Abraham Lincoln—a man long revered as one of the great men of our country by Democrats and Republicans alike—said concerning his own candidacy for re-election:

“I HAVE NOT PERMITTED MYSELF TO CONCLUDE THAT I AM THE BEST MAN IN AMERICA, BUT I AM REMINDED IN THIS CONNECTION OF A STORY OF AN OLD DUTCH FARMER WHO REMARKED TO A COMPAION THAT ‘IT IS NOT BEST TO SWAP HORSES WHILE CROSSING A STREAM.’’’

I can produce reams of like appeals made by the great leaders of the Republican party in 1898, but the above is sufficient to show that the Chairman of the Republican party in Henderson county is woefully ignorant of the utterances of his leaders when he declares in a hand-bill now being distributed in a reply to a letter of mine published in the Hustler on October 17th, epitomizing the appeals of Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Harrison and Mr. McKinley’s spokesmen in the Spanish-American war, and asking the voters of the country “OF EVERY POLITICAL PARTY” to sustain the President and his administration in this war, my letter to be “slanderous.”

What President Harrison said would be a “GLEAM OF HOPE FOR SPAIN” if the Democrats did not support the (Republican) president in 1898, Mr. Staton now characterizes as “false and unjust charges” when I say that “a vote for James J. Britt means a VOTE OF HOPE for the German people” if the Republicans to not support the Administration for the very same reasons in 1918!

In short, Mr. Staton says in his leaflet in reply to my appeal that what was the cry of patriotism on the part of HIS LEADERS in 1898 is now the voice of “slander” when I invoke it in almost identical language of his leaders, in behalf of Mr. Weaver and the Democratic Administration, which is “YET BURDENED WITH THE RESPONSIBILITIES OF A STATE OF WAR.”

It is noteworthy that Mr. Britt’s Manager, Hon. Brownlow Jackson, has, so far, preferred to appeal for support of his candidate upon the high ground of his intellectual and moral fitness rather than to descend to the cheap fol-de-rol of denouncing an appeal that HIS OWN leaders justly made with him politically, and as launching a campaign of slander when I make the SAME APPEAL on the SAME GROUNDS in behalf of the party now conducting the war against Germany.

I have a much higher regard and appreciation of the Republicans of Henderson County than Mr. Staton seems to have since I do not think that it would affect their subscriptions to the Liberty loans and Thurift Stamps a particle even if I had been foolish enough to publish an “unjust” or “slanderous” article about them. On the contrary, I have faith enough in their patriotism to believe they would have “turned their pockets wrong side out” in buying bonds and stamps to refute it!

Furthermore, I take great pride in the fact that I have many Republican friends who can read and write understandingly and who know the difference between a legitimate argument and appeal to reason and “unjust charges and slander.” I challenge Mr. Staton to publish in full my article, which called forth his circular.

In conclusion, I again appeal to “ALL PATRIOTIC CITIZENS OF EVERY POLITICAL PARTY” to support the Administration “BOTH BY VOICE AND VOTE” and cast their ballots for Simmons for the Senate and weaver for the House of Representatives and dispel “THE GLEAM OF HOPE” in Germany as President Harrison asked to dispel ‘THE GLEAM OF HOPE IN SPAIN IN 1898!

                                --E.W. Ewbank, Chairman Henderson County Democratic Ex. Committee

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