Albuquerque Morning Journal

STONE AND PENROSE
"Gumshoe Bill" Stone of Missouri announced as his motto, some years ago, "Raise h--ll when you can't raise anything else." He took his own advice in his much heralded speech Monday. Doubtless his purpose was to embarrass the administration, and he achieved that end beyond his own expectation.
Lodge is a statesman who deals with the serious things of national politics, much as Senator A. A. Jones of New Mexico deals with them. His reply to Stone was of a serious and statesmanlike sort. But Penrose, who is a practical politician, met Stone on his own ground. He nor Stone had the slightest regard for the welfare of the country in the war. Each was in the game for the achievement of a selfish end.
Stone spoke dramatically, vehemently, prancing up and down the aisle of the senate chamber waving his arms and shaking his fingers at the men he was attacking. He was in a fine fury. Penrose, who is a clever lawyer and shrewd politician, was all wit, sarcasm and biting jest. But he succeeded, under cover of a "chaffing" veneer, in laying before the country every weak spot of the administration's conduct of the war.
Up to this time the senate has taken orders from the president. What has been suggested from the White House has been incorporated into law, with the negligible opposition of La Follette, Gronna, Gore and Hardwick, in the senate, and less than a dozen pro-Germans in the house.
If there were republicans who would have liked to play politics, they feared to do so, because the sentiment of the country was back of Woodrow Wilson. But it remained for Senator Stone, chairman of the senate committee on foreign relations, to give an excuse for co-ordinated republican opposition to the administration on the lame excuse that it is being conducted along lines of partisan politics and with a view to keeping the democratic party in power.
A summary of the speech of Senator Stone had been sent out more than a week ago by the Associated Press and its contents were known to the president. Strong pressure was brought to bear to prevent its delivery. When that failed, Secretary McAdoo appointed William B. Willcox, chairman of the republican national committee and one of the objects of Stone's personal attack, to one of the most important of the government's war boards. This act disclosed clearly that the administration was not only not back of Stone's speech but wished to show to the country its complete repudiation.
The country at large should regard the speech as a personal expression on the part of Senator Stone--nothing more. It should regard the reply by Senator Penrose as a piece of very clever partisan politics, in no wise instigated by patriotism. The whole matter should be forgotten as quickly as possible and the senate should devote its energies to the defeat of Germany. That is our maximum problem.