Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1912-05-27
HOW ROOSEVELT
VIEWS CAMPAIGN

NEW YORK, May 27.-In the current
'The Rank and File" Theodore Roose-
Welt gives his views on the campaign
now being waged for the Presidential
nomination. He says 1t Is a fight by
the rank and file against the bosses.
The Progressives. he says, are the real
|Republicans, because they are standing
with the rank and file. In part the
editorial follows:
This campaign has been a fight by
the rank and Ale against the bosses.
1t is we Progressiyes who are the real
| Republicans because Ii Is we who are
| The popular primaries have shown that
the Republican voters do not van n
one else to govern them; they want to
govern themselves.
The party is not made up of the bosses
or the party workers alone; II is made
I'D of all the voters of the party.
Every party has to have Its leaders.
The true party leader Is the man who
tries to lead and not drive the voters,
and to put into effect their deliberate
Judgment. He has the right and the
duty to go before the voters and try
to persuade them, but he has no right,
by trickery or violence, to try TO i'm
pose his own will upon them against
theirs. The man VINO tries TO impose
his will upon the voters, who tries to
do things against the will of the voters,
Is not a leador-he is a boss.
In this campaign we have shown that
wherever the people have a chance to
express themselves they nave no use
for bosses. Eleven States, including
Ohio. have allowed the voters of the
party TO express their wishes. Out of
fhTon hnndFn1 a nd t41Fan4ty Il. Far dA1aoai no
elected at these primaries. the most
that Mr.. Taft could secure with the
help of party organization and patron
age, and with the bosses on his side.
amounts only to forty-eight. The only
states where Mr.. Taft has secured his
real victories are the States where the
party is In the control, not of the people,
but of the bosses. That shows clearly
on which side IN this issue Mr.. Taft
stands. That shows that this is a
straight issue between the bosses on the
one side and the people on the other
side.
When, in the face of that fact, Mr..
expects the Chicago convention to be
under the control of the friends OF
constitutional government" it is clearly
EVIDENT what he means by such
friends" All that this means is that
the convention which will make the
Presidential nomination would have to
defy the will of the voters; 1t would
have to override the peoples will.
The only question that remains now is,
Who Is TO be master-the boss or the
people? In this Campaign we have been
showing the bosses that they cannot be
masters. and that the real masters are
the rank and file.
When he was speaking in Ohio, Presi-
and a sham?' Is It? The Republican
voters In Ohio. where Mr.. Taft made
that statement. did not think SO. They
Joined with the Republican voters of
Illinois and Pennsylvania and Oregon
and California and Maryland n Me-
hraska md Wisconsin and North Da-
kota In deciding that they did not want
What the BOSSES had been telling thepi
they must have; The only reason that
this fight has k so long, the only Tea-
son that II was not finished two months
ago, lis that there have been only eleven
States In which the voters have had a
chance to show plainly what they
wanted. II they had had this chance
in thirty-three States instead of eleven
States. the result would have neen ST.
tied In April. 1t is only because the
voters have not had the chance in those
other States that some bosses and the
more ignorant or INSCRIPTIONS among
boss-ruled or Wall-Street-ruled newspa-
pers still talk about the chance of even
yet defeating the will of the people,
1t is only because of their Ignorance
that they can say this: for he ordinary
plain man with common sense can sce
that the rank and file have determined
to have their way.