Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1912-07-12
ROOSEVELT TELLS
OF ALLEGED THEFT
President Taft's denomination
Plain Steal, He Says in
Editorial.
PLEADS FOR RESISTANCE
TO TRIcKERY AND FRAUD
Under Heading of Thou Shalt
No Steal Gives Details
of Convention.

NEW YORK, July
Roosevelt further discusses the seat
ing of contested delegations in the
Republican national convention at
Chicago in an editorial entitled
Thou Shalt Not Steal" which ap-
pears In the current issue of the Out
look. He says in part:
THE American people are entitled
to know that the charge of stealing
the Chicago convention of 1912 is
more than campaign recrimination,
and that the frauds complained of are
much more serious than the mere
repetition of loose practises which
might have found unfortunate pre-
cedehts in some previous conven-
tions of both parties.
Seriously and literally, President
Taft's denomination was stolen Tor
him from the American people. and
| the ratification or rejection of that
nomination raises the critical issue
whether votes or fraud shall deter
mine the selection of American presi-
dents.
president Taft "a renominated
By a majority of barely t~wenty-one
votes and two of these were publicly
stolen at the last moment from Mas
sachusetts. If, therefore, more than
rireteen or twenty-one of his votes
were demonstrably fraudulent all
claim to honest majority disappears.
The demonstration can be made as
to many more than this number with
cot touching on a single honestly
debatable case.
Taft's Support Artificial.
''Tbis reckoning takes no account
of the notorious fact that even the
undisputed part of Mr.. Taft's sup
port was largely artificial and mis-
representative, made up of delegates
from the outlying possessions. from
hopelessly Democratic States and
from States where the people had
been successfully denied the express
sion of their will. 1t is sufficient to
consider only the four ~confessedly
~indefensible cases of California, Ari-
IONA. Washington and Texas, which
alone wipe out the margin. All that
could be added from the other cases
would only increase the Roosevelt
majority of the honest convention.
But I wish it distinctly understood
that many Of these other cases were
as clear as the California case itself.
Three Of these cases were a direct
assault on the right of the people to
elect their own delegates at primar-
les. since in them a few score politi-
clans decided that the voters as a
whole had no right themselves to de-
eide whom they wished to see nomi-
mated. In the California case the
delegates to the national convention
were elected by direct vote at State
wide preferential primarles. The ma
tional committee first and then the
national Republican convention NULL
fed the State law and, therefore. by
inference all State primary laws.
I'm Arizona and Washington the
control of the State conventions de-
pended on which of two rival delega-
tons was seated from certain coun-
ties, the one elected by the Repub-
iican voters at primaries regularly
called and the other set arbitrarily
appointed by boiling minorities of
both committees. The State commit
tees in each case seated the appointed
delegates and the national committee
approved that action.
Instances of Alleged Fraud.
president Taft was nominated by
t~wenty-one- votes-or by nineteen. If
the two from Massachusetts, are
omitted, which were counted only by
the extraordinary ruling of Chairman
Root that when a delegate answers
A"present and not voting his alter
nate shall be called to vote, always
provided that alternate is a Taft man.,
and the delegate a Roosevelt man.
THE cases here discussed cover, in
their narrowest application, thirty
votes-California two. Arizona six,
Washington fourteen and Texas-at-
large eight. The change OF these
thirty votes would have defeated
Taft; they would have reversed all
the important actions of the v
ton. Several of the district cases
from Texas are involved In the same
ruling as that which al made in the
case of the observation-disclosures and are
quite as fragrant.
Numerous other cases-as clearly
shown by the minority of the ma
tional committee and by the minority
of the credentials committee OF h
convention-were just as bad. AS l
have said, one Louisiana case was
worse. In Indiana case h Taft
delegates were elected only by first
packing the credentials committee, by
refusing to let in Roosevelt delegates
in whose cases pretended, contests
had been filed, and then by reverting
this ruling and letting the contested
Taft delegates vote on their own
cases.
There was no form of trick or
fraud which did not find favor in the
eyes of the conspirators. l have
merely cited a few cases, so %conspicu-
Gus that the facts canno be truth
fully disputed and sufficient in num-
he: to show by actual figures that
the nomination of Mr.. Taft could not
have been procured except by their
inclusion. The men responsible for
the theft of the delegates In question
cared NOT one rap for the rights sor
longs of any of the cases. They
were concerned only with getting the
requisite number of delegates. They
did steal as many as were needed;
they would have stolen as many more
as might have been needed.
Pleads for Resistance.
Id q > So -Ge--a - 49,.