The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1912-02-20
FIGHTING FOR PRINCIPLES

FIGHTING FOR ''PRINCIPLES.'
If there is more cold-blooded
game. or activity, than politics, it
hasn't succeeded in coming to the sur
\ face as yet. This is especially true
when it is being played by those pa
triots who consider a place in the pub
lie limelight as the acme of human
! endeavor. Conclusive evidence to this
end is to be found in the hasty and
unceremonious manner in which many
of his friends have deserted Senator
LaFollette in his hour of stress, as his
presidential boom collapses around
his head. It is one of the sorriest ex-
hibitions of duplicity and treachery in
the history of American politics.
And the men who have suddenly
left and are leaving the ranks led by
LaFollette. still have the audacity to
insist that they are fighting for ''prin-
ciples'' in the national political arena
That's the plea of Pinchot, the latest
of the prominent turn coats. Pinchot
and the men of like thought and ac-
ton who were prominent in the sup
port of the LaFollete candidacy wish
ed it to be known at the outset that
they we're for LaFolIette for the
presidency because he represented the
embodiments of the ''principles'' for a
progressive government. But in
their mad haste to provide the Roose-
welt bandwagon with little more
steam, they make no suggestion that
Colonel Roosevelt is an ardent sup
porter of the principles that senator
LaFollette has advocated They mere
ly say that Mr.. Roosevelt is a progress
sive That is granted on all sides.
But does any one think that if Mr..
Roosevelt becomes a candidate and his
friends control the Chicago convention
they will write for him the same sort
of a national platform on which to
conduct the campaign that would have
been written had Mr.. LaFollette and /
his friends been able to swing this
convention to their will. Decidedly |
no. Mr.. Roosevelt was in control of /
the New York state Republican con-
vention less than two years ago. The |
platform he accepted for that conven-
ton had nothing of the earmarks of !
a LaFouette platform about it. Nor
is there any evidence that Mr.. Roose-
welt has changed in his ideas on the |
fundamentals essential for the con-
duct of a stable government.
Mr. Roosevelt is a Republican pro-
gressive, all right. The original pro- |
gressive in the party, perhaps And !
as such he rendered his countrymen |
most effective service AS such he |
chose President Taft as his successor. I
Would Mr. Taft have received such |
urgent support from Colonel Roose- /
Welt had the latter known him to be a
reactionary? An honest estimate of |
the accomplishments of the Taft adj
ministration will show him to have
been one of the most progressive /
presidents that this nation has ever
had.
The trouble with Pinchot and his |
like is that they seek to pervert the |
meaning of the word progressive. They |
contend taht it is synonymous with the |
principles advocated by the sans
culottes of the Republican party And f
so their contentious that in advocating +
the nomination of Colonel Roosevelt 4
they are doing the best in their power i
to further the principles with which |
they have allied themselves is the |
veriest of political buncombe They |
were quick to see that LaFollette was !
fighting for lost cause. Instead of |
standing by their guns and going man |
fully down to defeat, they desert their
standard bearer, and turn their ener- /
gies to the efforts being made to have |
Colonel Roosevelt emerge again as a |
presidential candidate. There is no |
rather be-righ president tenet /
in their political beliefs. They'll hitch .
their wagon onto any star that might /
possibly help them attain something |
larger in the way Of personal political
preferment.