Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1911-10-17
THE SITUATION.


resentatiye. who has been an UNI
compromising standpatter for many
years but who is very much dissat-
isfied with the Taft administration,
sizes up the political situation con-
oisely and accurately in the follow
ing clear-cut manner:
Some very positive statements are
being made in the Iowa press to the
general effect that whatever may or
might be the difficulty of again
electing Taft as the republican nom
inee there would be no chance what
ever with LaFollette as such nomi-
nee. Also, anyone who is disposed
to act upon a different theory of the
situation is dogmatically set down
as politically very foolish, and fur
ther there is a pronounced DISPOSE
ton among many to charge the OBJ
vious weakness of Taft to the con-
duct of the insurgent opposition. We
think that folks who talk after this
fashion had better look into the
facts.
To take the last proposition first:
We have no commission from repub-
lican insurgents to justify all that
they may have said and done in the
past few years, but the plain fact
is that the republican party is now
in much better condition for the
presidential campaign in that por-
ton of the country which has been
affected by insurgency than in that
portion which has not been so af-
fected Without trying to be too
precise in defining the insurgent
territory, it may be said that the
characteristics of insurgency have
been manifested chiefly in the
prairie region west of Lake Michi-
gan and also, after jumping the
mountains, on the Pacific coast. In
this region at the last election the
republicans carried all the states
that they ever do carry, excepting
Nebraska, and in that state results
were divided, the republicans elect
ing the governor and the democrats
the senator. The attitude of Sena-
tor Beveridge has caused Indiana to
be classed sometimes with the In
surgent states; but there is no rea-
son to believe that Beveridge has
ever represented the republican par
ty in Indiana, and the only time
when he has ever appeared to do so
was last year, when the regulars
abandoned the field and permitted
him to ride untrammeled to an inev-
liable defeat. Furthermore, Indiana
was lost on everything but president
in 1908, and its loss again in 1910
did not put the republican party in
materially worse shape than the par
ty was in before. Generally speak
ing, the insurgent republican terri
tory stood firm, even in the disas-
trous year of 1910.
But how about the regulars?
East of Indiana there was in 1910
no fight against the national adj
ministration within the republican
organization Throughout that re-
gion the proceedings of republican
conventions, the expressions of lead
ers and the conduct of all the repub-
Iican campaigns all implied that the
Payne-Aldrich tariff bill was salts
factory, that the denomination of
President Taft was to be anticipat-
ed and that the republican party had
no occasion to be displeased with it
self. In Ohio the matter was en-
phasized by formal presentation OF
MP. Taft as Ohios candidate for re-
nomination. The Roosevelt eruption
in New York confused the situation
slightly in that state; but there also
a Roosevelt convention extolled Taft
in extrayagant terms, and the pub
lis mind was not greatly diverted
from the general issue of the Taft
administration. On this general is
sue the republicans were overwhelm-
ed in Ohio, New York, New Jersey
and Maine, lost their governors in
Connecticut and Massachusetts,, al
most lost their senator in the latter
state, even in Pennsylvania saved
their governor by very meager
majority, lost ground in Maryland
and were swept flom the field in the
steady-going republican state OF
West Virginia. Also, whereas the
states from and Including Ohio east
ward had in the sixty-first congress
los republicans 10 thirty-three dem
osDats, the same states elected to the
sixty-second congress siXty-nine re-
publicans and seventy-two demo-
Gratis. 1t was in this eastern sec
tion OF the country, where insur-
gency had no stlnding, that the re-