The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1912-07-04
THE TASK BEFORE REPUBLICANS

Nobody can forecast the result of the
presidential election. Undoubtedly the
Republican chance is not especially favor
able unless the Democratic convention
now sitting or Mr.. Roosevelt's move
ments in the near future shall alter the
situation. But assume for the sake of
looking ahead that the Republican noml-
nee will not be elected. Does it by any
means follow that the mission of the Re-
publican party is ended, or that indeed it
is not to be congratulated on the posi-
ton in which it will be left and the stand
which it has taken in it's recent conven-
ton? 1t has nominated a tried and true
man, who in himself and in his four years
of honest administration is an earnest
of the sanest and safest government.
Its platform is a striking advance from
the conservative views of generation
ago and yet represents the progressive
conservatism of the present day. Its
organization is efficient An enlightened
and influential press all over the Union
sustains it. Its prestige and its record
of achievements, continuously respon-
sive to public sentiment, are funda-
mental factors in its strength. 1t there
is lust now disconnected element In 1t,
that element represents not SO much a
variant policy as personal distraction.
This, as in all such cases, will from Its
very nature by transient and will end by
merging itself in one or both Of the old
political parties, No new party can
sustain itself on prediction for an in
dividual. Tariff, currency or slavery can
make party, but Henry Clay or James
C. Blaine or Abraham Lincoln, idols of
the people, cannot.
If the Republican party fails to win
the national election the next best thing
is perhaps all the more assured, and that
il this. For II years it has been under
incessant and searching criticism, not
only by its old opponent, but by its own
members. All the evils of fire and flood,
of high cost Of living, of panic and bust
ness iuctuation, of extravaganza and
departmental misconduct, have been at
tributed to it. Is it altogether poor
asset to lie low while and watch some
other fellow, whether Democrat or
a holter of its own, run the machine!
Everybody knows that not man, woman
CT child will be bit better off, and that
the cost of living depends not at all on
any probable political interference with
the impIacable laws Of demand and sup
ply. 1t is capital campaign cry to de-
nounce the accumulations of capital that
are really essential to our industrial ac-
Invites and on the whole reduce prices in
such staples as sugar, kerosene; even
meat, terribly high as it is, is probably
cheaper than if we depended on the in
dlvidual butcher or farmer. But there
is not an intelligent man who does not
know that the wages and salaries of
every laborer and clerk are as much
bound up in and dependent on these as is
the income of the capitalist, and that the
requisite is regulation, not suppression,
and that this regulation under Mr. Roose-
welt or Mr. Wilson or Mr.. Bryan will not
be whit more effective than under Mr..
Taft who has given himself heart and
hand to the work. Everybody knows
that our very national life rests on our
constitutional foundations, and in whose
hands have these been and will they be
safest?
The duty of the Republican party is te
make the:good fight and keep the faith,
to maintain its organization whole and,
If it gets the purging of defeat, see that
it is only purging, confident that the
country will in due time again entrust to
it's hands the responsibilities which, as
the immutable facts show, it has fol-
more than half century so soundly ane
so progressively discharged. D.
Long, in the Boston Herald.