The Washington times., 1912-11-12
1.-THE FIGHT HAS JUST BEGUN"

Colonel Roosevelts statement Of his great salts
faction with the results of the Progressive parys|
campaign and his assurance that the party has come
to stay, ought to provide food for thought gentle
men who are setting out the business of reorganiz
ing the Republican party. What is left pray, for
the Republican party to do with? 1t hopelessly
defeated by the Progressive party, both in the popu
lar and in the electoral vote There is nothing left
of it save the minority Of tories and little group of
men in Office who, having been placed there under
the Republican banner, don't know how to maintain
themselves without clngng to the old organization
The effort to save the old Republican party can
only be effort to hold the consolidated torysm Of
the country together and then draw to it enough Of
opporunists, place-seekers, tradition-lovers, and
misguided people to restore it to respectable numbers
and potentially. Suppose the Cranes, Penroses,
Barneses and their ilk all withdraw from the domna
ton of the organization and suppose those places are
given to men who are in sympathy with the purposes
Of Hadley, Cummins, Kenyon and others of the bet
ter element of the old party-what then2
This new leadership would still have to build its
party out Of the old elements. Those elements would
not be changed by the retirement Of the bosses who
stole the Chicago nomination. Broadly speaking
the support which the Republican ticket received on
Tuesday last measured the total strength Of the ele
plaud that theft Whence would the reorganizers-
presuming that they really enjoyed the association
with this eement-whence would they expect to
draw re-enforcements sufficient to make up a con-
trolling majority of the national electorate?
That seems to be the real question at this time.
The first attention of the reorganzers would be given
to tolling back into their camp that element Of ex-
IRENE reactionaries standpat Republicans Of the
most intense sort-who voted for Wilson in order to
make doubly sure that Roosevelt and Progressivism
should be defeated at all hazards There is no way
Of knowing how many hundreds of thousands there
we're Of these. They constituted the most intense
| element Of all toryism; the men who saw that the
one chance of real progressive victory lay in the cleo
ton of Roosevelt and who preferred to give whole
vote against it, instead Of half vote, as they would
have done had they supported Taft.
reorganized Republican party, then, would seek
to get together the mild reactionares who stuck by
Taft and the ntenser reactonaries whose hatred of
all progressvism carried them far that they sup
ported Wilson. With these two elements combined,
something like third Of the national voting strength
it now appears, might be mustered
9. In making this combination, the Wilson Democ-
racy would be weakened by the withdrawal of its re-
dictionary Republican elements, and this loss would
leave it so weakened that it would very apparently
be left in a hopeless position. Already it is a mi
norty party; it cast fewer votes for Wilson than
Bryan ever secured Take away its urac conservative
following and it is left impotent to sustain itself
In that event, the inevitable next move would be
for the sincerely progressive Democrats to go over
to the Progressive party. They would see chance
of making their progressive purposes weigh for re-
suits and action. The combination of tory Repub
canism on one side would be confronted by com
bnation the other Of progressives of all parties
and there can be no uncertainty on which side the
majority would lie This country is progressive by
vast majority. Nothing will so soon bring about the
ideal alignment of the nation into liberal and {
tory party the very program which Messrs. Hadley
Kenyon, and Cummins now taking up.
This is the consummaon that all earnest people
would like to see reached Whether they be Of the
liberal or of the reactionary persuasion, they recog
nize that something like an honest lineup on th'
real issues of the time is necessary and desirable
The effortto gavanze life back into the Republican
remains will promote this very end as nothing els'
could therefore, in wise it is effort altogethe
to be welcomed by true progressives.