Suchergebnisse

Any attempt impartially to analyze the issues involved in the controversy between President Wilson and Senator Chamberlain, which culminated in a victory for the former in the passage of the Overman bill, will meet with serious difficulties. An error, too common to much current journalism, and not entirely absent from the more technical and highly specialized articles when they deal with political subjects, is that of attributing a certain result to one factor when it is brought about by a plexus of causes. Most important political controversies, especially those of national import, involve numerous currents of cause and effect, which, to be understood clearly and appraised impartially, demand of the conscientious publicist careful consideration in their true relationship. Because the fight over coördination involved many prominent men, much diversity of opinion, issues both national and international, and—though indirectly—the question of universal military service, its treatment in an adequate manner is by no means easy.What is meant by coördination? The noun is defined in the Century dictionary as "the act of arranging in due order or proper relation, or in a system; the state of being so ordered." The verb "to coördinate" is defined: "to place, arrange, or set in due order or proper relative position; bring into harmony or proper connection and arrangement."

When the sixty-third congress was called in extraordinary session on April 7, 1913, it was the first time since 1895 that both branches of congress and the executive had been under Democratic control. For nearly two decades the policies of the nation had been shaped and directed by the Republicans. Now after many years the minority had become the majority, and a Democratic President sat in the White House. In the congressional elections of 1910, dissatisfaction with the Payne-Aldrich tariff and the growing friction between the conservative and progressive wings of the Republican party had given the Democrats a net gain of 56 seats in the house of representatives, and control of that body by a majority of 66 votes. The senate during the sixty-second congress, however, still remained Republican by a majority of 10 votes. In 1912 the three-cornered presidential contest had resulted in the election of Wilson by an unprecedented electoral vote, although he did not have a majority of the popular vote cast. The schism in the ranks of the Republican party and the drift that had set in toward the Democratic ticket had increased the Democratic representation in the lower branch of congress to 290, while the Republican representation had fallen to 145, including 18 Progressives who did not go into the Republican caucus and who could not always be counted on to vote with the minority. In the senate the Democrats had gained enough seats to give them a majority of 6, a net gain of 16 seats over their membership in the sixty-second congress.