Mr. Bryan, as leader of the Peace-at-Any-Price Party in America,
seems to have gone rather far in taking counsel with Count Bernstorff and sending to Germany a suggestion of his own for a compromise over the submarine question. Mr. Barthelme, the Washington correspondent of the Cologne Gazette, who is regarded as the un- official German agent in America since diplomatic relations ceased, transmitted Mr. Bryan's suggestion in the guise of a Press message, which was passed by the Secretary for the Navy, who now controls the Sayville wireless station. Mr. Bryan's apparent readiness to embarrass the President at a most critical moment, when Mr. Wilson requires the united support of all parties if he is to maintain peace with honour, reminds us of the domestic enemies and rivals who were always trying to upset Lincoln during the Civil War. Wan- sligham, a leading Democratic Pacificist of those days, denounced the idea of fighting to preserve the Union or to free the slaves, and in May, 1863, on the eve of the Federal-defeat at Chancellorsville, he de- lighted an audience of " Butternuts " and " Copperheads " in Ohio with the wildest abuse of Lincoln as a tyrant who rejected every over- ture of peace. Vallandigham was arrested, tried' by Corr -Mart and then, in contemptuous pity, sent over to the Confederate lines to
join his friend the enemy. Lincoln knew how to handle such men. Probably Mr. Wilson knows too.
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