Arizona republican., 1912-07-22
Our Departing Friends.

republican party of Arizona, but for their own sake. the departure from the party of several estimable gentle ment. The general result, so far as this state is concerned will not be affected in the least. though. if we were to have a general election next fall. the consequences to the party would undoubtedly be serious.
 We believev the leaders of the movement are taking a fatal political step one which they will never retrace for it has appeared in the history of such movements. and there have been many of them, that the leaders seldom or never return. The rank and file find their way back into the fold. but usually false pride, a curious notion of consistency, drives the leader into inconsistency. and he remains in the wilderness Whither he has led his flock.
 The free silver craze. wild and hair brained as it is now seen to have been. drew many prominent and intel ligent republicans to Bryan. A man of such powerful intellect as Senator Teller. who for years had been force in the republican party and be- side whom the Peerless One was pigmy, left his party forever. adopting not only the fallacy of free silver, but later taking up all the fOllies that suggested themselves in turn to MT Bryan.
 Before that the populist movement had called many eminent republicans. who later saw the futility of it. But they believed that they had erected an impossible barrier behing them. and so entered the always open door of democracy. We believe that within the nexc two years we will find the gentlemen at the head of the Arizona progI essive movement in full demo- cratic fellowship, or perhaps not in full fellowship. but admitted to the privilege of picking up the crumbs that fall from the democratic table.
 Never before have republicans abandoned their party with so little reason for doing so and with so little prospect of reward. What" asked Senator Works the other day, If Roosevelt should die?" Where would the party be? What cohesive force would bind it? There is no other man who could hold the various cle- ments together. No definite principles have been announced by him and no policy has been outlined yet. His fol- lowers do not know and cannot know until his platform is presented at Chicago what they will have to swal- low. and perhaps MT Roosevelt him self does not yet know just what he will feed them. The party rests solely on MT Roosevelt; on a foundation or ambition. wounded vanity and disap- pointment
 We have before us this declaration from the call for state convention made public last Saturday:
 We recognize that the time has come for a national progressive move ment on nonsectional lines, that the people may be served in sincerity and truth by an organization unfet- tered by obligations to interests which conflict with the public welfare, a progressive party which shall teach and demand the return to and en- forcement of the principles of govern ment as taught and practiced by Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lin coin
 "Who believe in the right and ca pacity of the people to rule them selves and effectively to control the agencies of their government, and who hold that only through social and industrial justice thus secured can honest property find permanent protection"
 What does this mean more than II meant when it was proclaimed in gen eral though in more consistent terms by the populists almost quar- ter of century ago? Is the national progressive movement more apropos now than it was when MT. Roosevelt took his seat in the presidential chan ten years ago, or than it was at any time within the seven years of his administration?