The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-03-11

hand those who believe that the Re-
puplcan parity can and shall be made
now what it was made under Lincoln
"a great instrument for the achieve
ment of Righteousness through the rule
of the plain people,
we regard the present contest not
as contest between individuals-for
we are not concerned with the well
fare of any particular individual,
neither with mine nor with that of
any other man-but as a contest be-
tween these two radically different
views of the function of politics in a
great democracy.
Politicians Against Him.
Therefore, we demand that states
like Illinois, Michigan, New York,
Massachusetts, be given the chance to
express their preference in pres1den-
tial primaries as to whom they wish
body of professional politicians are
pltted against us in this contest and
in every state and in every congress
S1onal district they are led by the OF
ficeholders who. with the example be-
fore them of what was done in con-
nection with the nominations for To-
cal offices in North Carolina, are
working as we have rarely seen them
work in American political H1e;
Against such forces it is in any event
difficult enough for the ordinary plain
citizens, who have only the general
welfare at heart, to win. But IT be-
plain citizens to give expression to the
popular will when there is no popular
primary.
Here in New York the machines of
the two parties co-operated to draw up
a primary law which imposed on the
people a system so cumbrous, SO in
volved as to make it impossible to get
a fair expression of public sentiment
ard very difficult to get any express
sion of public sentiment at all. The
IL - n
mirably adapted to achieve its purpose;
for its purpose is to prevent the people
from controlling party organizations or
having their say in party nominations
and to preserve such control and such
domination purely for the class of pro-
fessional politicians.
Still Is Time to Change.
''It is idle to say that it is too late to
make the change we ask. Our oppon-
ents are themselves to blame for the
fact that the demand has not been
sooner granted. For long time-for
over eighteen months in the state of
New York, for inStance-every progress
sive, every friend of really popular gov
has been demanding a system
of genuine direct primaries. Whenever
we have failed to get this system, such
failure is due to the action of the re-
dictionary whose one aim is to prevent
the people from controlling party or
6dIllZdllOI5 u WHICH ID6y DGIOnS, WHO
distrust the people and do
not believe in their rights to rule and
now these men, who have thus prevent
ed the people from getting direct pri-
maries demand that they be allowed to
remain in the beneficiaries of their own
wrong and ask to be excused from
granting the demand for direct primar-
les now just because they have con-
temptuously refused to grant that de-
mand in the past
IF the people decide against us we
will bow cheerfully to the decision, con-
fdent that they viii in the end see that
the cause for which we fight is indeed
the cause of human rights and human
welfare. But we very emphatically OBJ !
iect, here in this democracy and within
the confines of the party which claims
Abraham Lincoln as its national found |
or, to having the issue decided against |
u.s. not by the people, but by the spoils |
politicians and patronage mongers who |
are engaged in defrauding the Ameri- |
IAN people out of their first and most
elemental right-the right of self gov |
arnment''