Imperial Valley press., 1912-07-29

power of the place he holds, by use OF
machine coercion and by machine dom
ination, ruthless and expert. The dele
gates who voted for Taft didn't vote
for Taft because they wanted Taft, but
because the machine made them vote
for Taft. The primary delegates were
almost all for Roosevelt Taft was
nominated by the nOn-Republican
south and by that portion of the north
where the old order still prevails. Four
years will bring in the new order in
most of these northern states, and
then the negro delegate from the south
will lose his Importance, the machine
will be out of business, and the presi-
dental nominee will be the man who
gets most popular support, not the
man who has the organization with
him.
Moreover. it is doubtful if the Re
publican party of the past survives
until another convention time. The
old party is practically dead now In
stead of compact, cohesive fighting
force, it is hcpelessly split along lines
of radicalism and conservatism. In
reality the Republican party is two
parties, radical party and a conser-
vative party. The radicals are in the
majority, and if they get a proper me-
dunn for expression of their opinions
at the polls this will be shown clearly
in November. Whether they do or not.
the time is coming when the radical
Republicans will join with the radical
Democrats and form a countrywide
radical party, thus giving the conser-
vatives the option of combining. or
being reduced to non-representative,
factional minorities. Republicanism
and Democracy, as described by those
terms, are dead and almost buried. The
real issue in this country is radicalism
against conservatism, and the issue
will be met, in part at least, in this
campaign. In some future campaign
it will be met squarely, for the division
is coming.
The Chicago convention showed this
clearly. 1t proved the advent of the
new order by the appearance of new
men and the invoking of new princi-
pies, and it proved also the decadance
of the Republican party as it has been.
An illustration was the preliminary to
the first session. Imagine a Republi-
can national convention where not
only most of the Republican leaders
for the past three decades were absent
but where the majority of the dele
gates did not know, by sight even.
those who were present. Think of a
Republican national convention where
the best that could be done i'm the way
of convention machine leadership was
Jim Watson and Serene E. Payne and
William OCon1ell Bradley. Consider
party in such straits on the machine
side that there was no other one man.
aside from Taft, who could be brought
INTO the arena as a machine alterna-
tive candidate. Think of the depths
to which the organization of the party
that has only been defeated twice in
presidential elections since 1860. has
fallen when, after canvassing its en-
tire strength, no man could be found
TO replace a candidate distinctly I'M
popular, not only with the people but
with the organization itself. They
worked for weeks trying to produce
another candidate, and the only re-
suits were Mr. Justice Huges. who
wouldn't let them make joke of him.
and Charles Warren Fairbanks.
The day of the old bossesSis over.
The day of national committee domina-
ton is past. New methods and new
men are rapidly succeeding the old.
and the people will presently get an
opportunity to divide along natural
lines instead of being held to illogical
and oppressive political affiliations by
the fetish of party.