Enlisted Men
Governor Cox went at great length to improve the condition of the Ohio soldier. He favored all of the legislation presented in the soldiers’ behalf and made numerous trips to Washington and elsewhere in the interests of these men.
There are three factors in connection with the waging of war. There is the government; there is the property interests of the country; and lastly, there is the enlisted and drafted men. Some men who put politics before principles would have appealed equally for the interests of all these three parties; but he did not. Whether he made a mistake, politically, only the future can tell. He took the unorthodox position of stating that the interests of the men were paramount to the interests of wealth or property and equal to the interests of the government itself. The Governor believed that the United States should not follow Germany in its error of making the state greater than those who make up the state. The Governor felt that a very vital principle was here involved and continually fought to have the real purpose of the war kept constantly in view.
Consequently both in his speeches and papers he fought for the “common” people of Ohio—the boys on the farms and in the factories. Unlike some Senators who were willing to send our boys to Europe to die but who now are unwilling to give up any of their own power to prevent future wars, James M. Cox was consistent with his concepts of true Americanism.