The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1908-09-26

Theodore Roosevelt And no less light is the
Democratic candidate for the presidency, William
]. Bryan. And William H. Taft in his speech of
acceptance of the Republican nomination said
some things which have puzzled the politicians of
the old school, Others who have been prominent
in this new order of things are Governor Hughes
of New York, Governor Hoch of Kansas Governor
! Folk of Missouri Governor johnson of Minnesota,
Governor Cummins of Iowa and Senator LaFollette
of Wisconsin. There are Others of course but this
list is sufficient to show the purpose of this article
All of these gentlemen would probably insist that
they are intense partisans. Some are Republicans.
and some are Democrats. But every one of them
is for better government. Their politics is mat
ter of small moment.
When these men are advertised to speak any
subject, and they have been prominently identi-
fed with the Chautauquas and various lecture bu-
reaus during the past few years. it is almost GER
tanty that large audience will greet them. The
audience attracted is not a partisan audience
either gathered for the purpose of stirring up par
tisan enthusiasm but an audience made up of men
and who want to hear the political questions
of the country discussed by who have given
those questions their best thought and who APP
proach their subject from the moral rather than
the partisan political standpoint. With them the
political problems are first moral problems They
endeavor to point out the defects in the present
way of doing things and it doesn't make any par
ticuar difference which party is right and which
is wrong in their attitude toward public questions,
They endeavor to get at the moral center and show
their auditors the moral aspect of the political
problems. They discuss railroad regulation, trust
al
the other subjects which are at present promi-
nently before the people The fact that they speak
on these subjects in their moral rather than their
partisan POLITICAL aspect has tended always to give
them wider hearing than if their meetings had
been for the purpose of furthering the candidacy
of any man or party.
Not all of the men we have mentioned have been
on the ChautauQua circuit, but most of them have.
The Democrats among them may invade Repub
lican community and be received with the same
enthusiasm as the Republicans would in a Demo
cratic community. And in their talks, the appeal
is to the moral sense of men and women. not to
their blind partisanship. The result has been the
of the old party ties which have grown
up during the course of events since and before the
Civil The anti-saloon agitation, no doubt.
can be traced indirectly to the efforts of these men
to present public questions in a new light. And
the task of running the peoples government, which
had been taken over by the interests assisted by
the gamblers, political grafters the brewers and
their saloons, viii doubt be given back to the
people a result of their non-partsan work
1t does not require a prophet nor the son of
prophet to foretell the doom of the entrenched
oartyism that has been governing the nation dur
ng all these years. The political problems take
IN life when discussed according to their
merit, and not to influence voters. The campaigns |
# the future will be carried on during the years
when the party workers are busy holding down their
obs, and the political workers will be those who
Will put partisanship aside and discuss the prob
ems in heart-toheart talks with the people whose
forts have been painfully inadequate to accom-
dish the greatest good to the greatest number in
he years of partisan political control during which
ii the evils of today grew up.