The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-08-09
ANOTHER POLITICAL PARTY.


 About once in so often the Ameri. can public is assured, with a large show of seriousness that new and epoch making movement has been in augurated in national politics. The Greenback, Prohibition Populist and other crusades were 'launched' with lavish enthusiasm and more lavish pro- phecy. Each was destined, accordingto it's sponsors to revolutionize the coun- try, proceeding by rapid stages from triumph and finally placing some one of it's faithful leaders in the presiden- tial chair. To-day we mark the wreck of these several organizations. They are defunct or decadent; some of them no longer nominate candidates for pub- lie office; others, like the Prohibit tionists, go through the pleasing farce of holding conventions and voting for nominees who have not the ghost of a show of being elected. The Mid dle-of-the- Road Populists have aband- oned their rough truding in the cen ire of the highway, convinced that it is peter going" along the side of the road; the Farmers Alliance, the Union party, the Union Reforners, the LtberI ty party and various others, for whom great victories were forecast, have ceased to be. Yet we are now tn- formed that new political party is in process of establishment which has A million adherents already, among thefa such eminent members of the old-tim9 parties as Senator La Toilette, Cover, nors Folk Handy and Cummins, Thomas H. Tibbles of Nebraska, Hoke Smith and Tom watson of Georgia, George Fred Williams, Wh. Randolph i Hearst and (probably) the Honorable i William Jennings Bryan himself.
 i Studied more carefully the new move- ment appears to lack cohesion and 1 detiniteness. It's million adherents turn out to be not actual subscribers to a new party creed, but malcontents, pre- sumably, in the existing parties who resent and are prepared to resist tho encroachments of corporation influence l upon those parties. They are, general ly speaking, the progressives in Amer i ican politics. some of them of real con- structive ability, others more mischief 1 makers and cranks. To most of their principals very likely President Roose- welt would find it possible to subscribe, s,.kz. the ranks of the standpat protection ists They represent the antitrust sentiment of the country, through it would be futile to say that they or any other group of theorists enjoy q monopoly of that sentiment. And all 1 that seems to have been done thus | far Is to emphasize the points of agree ment among them and suggest the 1 possibility of brining them, and all who think as they do, into single party fold.
 When it comes to the test, however, ! the chances are that the new move ment will amount to little or nothing ! It is conceivable that 1t might enjoy a temporary triumph in some locali
 ties. but in due season the old party lines will be frightened again, and in , the meantime the existing party names will not go out of vogue. The anti trust heaven is working in all parties but that does not mean that a new party will have to be formed to give it full play There will be fusions and combinations and very promptly ouandam hostile factions will come to. gether from time to time for the ac- eomplishment of a certain specific pur- pose; but the new political organiza- ton whose prospects are so glowingly pictured is not likely to supplant either 1 the Reublican party, or the Democratic. l MT. Hearst may make his Independence | League a national organization, and the reputed new party may maintain
 second side show, but the Republican ! and Democratic national convention will be held, as usual. in 1908, and most of the old familiar faces will be dis cernible there. Providence Journal