Omaha daily bee., 1912-07-13
CONTRASTS HIM WITH BRYAN
Declares that the Motives of Colonel
Are Purely Selfish.
BY MONEY INTERESTS
Would Destroy All Who Would Not
Agree with His Opinions.
FAXED DELEGATES TO CONTROL
Opportunity mt Chicago to Serve
the Progressive farty, but
Refused.

WASHINGTON. July 12.-Under tn,
caption, The Case of Mr.. Roosevelt,
Senator La Toilette has written the fol
lowing editorial in the current numbe
of La Follette's weekly:
Bryan at Baltimore foregoing al
chance of his own nomination, marshall
ing all his forces, Drawing Tammany anC
the trusts, to rescue his party from theil
domination. carrying the convention 70
the adoption of the most progressiv,
democratic platform yet offered and tn,
nomination of the most progressive can
didate available. was a towering figure
of moral power and patriotic devotion tt
civic righteousness.
Roosevelt at Chicago, backed b,
money derived from the stock-waterins
operations Of the Steel trust and the
Harvester trust. organizing what are now
confessed to have been fakes as to nearly
200 delegates in order to control the re-
publican convention and secure his own
nomination, refusing to aid in making a
progressive platform, bound to have the
nomination or destroy the republican
party. was q most striking example OF
misdirected power and unworthy ambi.
ton.
Roosevelt had as great an opportunity
to serve the progressive cause at Chicago
as Bryan had at Baltimore. But Roose-
welt was serving the man. not the cause.
He wanted one thing-he wanted the
nomination. And yet he did not have
enough votes to nominate himself upon
any honest basis. He did have enough
delegates in that convention ultimately
to have nominated real progressive and
adopted strong progressive platform.
He could even have nominated Hadley
in much the same spirit as hundreds of
thousands of them will now support
Wilson. Neither Hadley nor Wilson are
veterans In the progressive ranks. Neither
of them has been tried by the sevsrest
tests. Both appear to be men Of high
ideals, whose record, though short give
promise.
Teddy is for Roosevelt.
but Roosevelt would not consider
Hadley. He would have no one but him
self. At the first suggestion of Hadley
he ordered the third party maneuvers,
lest he lose his followers.
IF he had the evidence to prove that
Taft could not be honestly and fairly
nominated, why did he not direct his lieu
tenants to present that evidence to the
national committee, and then to the con-
vention and the country so clearly that
the convention would not have dared to
nominate Taft, and that Taft could not,
in honor, have accepted the nomination,
If made.
The reason is obvious. An analysis
Of the testimony will, 1 am convinced
show that neither Taft nor Roosevelt
had majority of honestly or regularly
elected delegates. This the managers upon
both sides well understood. Each candi-
date was trying to seat a sufficient
number of fraudulently credentialed
delegates, added to those regularly
chosen to support him, to secure control
Of the convention, and 'steam-roll the
nomination. 1t was a proceeding with
which each was acquainted, and which
each had sanctioned In prior conventions.
This explains the extraordinary con-
duct of Roosevelt He could not enter
upon an analysis of the evidence as would
prove Taft's regularly elected delegates
In the minority, without inevitably SUBJ
jecting his own spuriously credentialed
delegates to an examination so critical
as would expose the falsity of his own
that he had an honestly
elected majority of the delegates He
therefore deliberately, chose to claim
everything, to cry aloud, to bully the
national committee and the convention
and having thus created condition which
would make impossible calm investiga-
ton of cases upon merit, carry the con-
vention by storm.
Program Purely Selfish.
That this is the true psychology of the
Roosevelt proceedings becomes perfectly
plain. He was there to force his own
nomination or smash the convention Ea