toral campaign of 1916, and which, stifled for the moment by entrance
into the war, had flamed out early in 1918 in the attack upon his war
administration, now in the autumn threatened an explosion of popular
disapprobation in some parts of the country. Men had long whispered
"autocrat" but had generally been silenced during the war by the
admonition not to weaken the government by factious criticism. Now they
began to shout it from the house-tops. Because of his inability to grasp
the importance of either tact or tactics, the President made the way of
his opponents easy for them.

Shortly before the Congressional elections of November, at the moment
when he felt the need of national support in order to strengthen his
position with the Allies, the President was prevailed upon to issue an
appeal to the electors, asking them to vote for Democratic candidates on
the ground that the nation ought to have unified leadership in the coming
moment of crisis, and that a Republican Congress would divide the
leadership. There was nothing novel in such an appeal; in 1898, McKinley
had begged for a Republican Congress on the ground that "this is no time
for divided councils," the same ground as that taken by Wilson in 1918.
Roosevelt in the same year (1898) had said: "Remember that whether you
will or not your votes this year will be viewed by the nations of Europe
from one standpoint only.... 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 the peace commission." Wilson's appeal in 1918 was
merely an echo of Roosevelt's in 1898. Yet it was a mistake in tactics.
It enabled the Republicans to assert that, whereas they had sunk partisan
differences during the war in order to secure the victory of the nation,
Wilson was now capitalizing the war and foreign problems to win a
partisan advantage. The result of the elections was Republican success,
assuring to that party a slight majority in the Senate and a goodly
majority in the House after March 4, 1919.

The President made other tactical mistakes. Instead of taking the Senate
into his confidence by entering upon numerous conferences with its
leaders, he stood upon the letter of the Constitution and gave the clear
impression that he would conduct the peace negotiations himself without
Senatorial assistance, leaving the Senators merely their constitutional
privilege of "advice and consent" when a treaty