Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1912-06-29
BACKED BY MONEY"
Holds Roosevelt Responsible for the Split Among the PrOgressiYes-
 Writes in Magazine.

en as a candidate for the presidency five months ago there was strong | and rapidly growing progressive | movement within the Republican par ty. 1t was based upon clearly defin- ed principles. It stood forth as the representative of modern political thought on fundamental democracy. It had assumed national proportions. It was united.
 Into this movement, when it gave promise of national success, Roose- velt projected his ambition to be president third time. He spent three weeks carefully planning a spontaneous call for himself. He re- sponded by announcing that he would be receptive candidate His can didacy began to drag. He and his friends were in despair. Then came his defeat in North Dakota. He be- came desperate.
 An enormous campaign fund was raised His headquarters were opened in New York, Washington, Chicago and States East and West Newspaper writers were engaged at large prices 1 to boom his candidacy Special trains were hired and the receptive candi- date started ill frantic pursuit of the nomination. In the history of Ameri- can politics there has never been in primary campaign for presidential nomination an approach to the extra vagant expenditures made in his cam paign. Men notoriously identified with the steel trust mad the harvester trust became his most active supporters. Leading reactionaries, standpatters and political bosses of the Hanna and Quay sort became his closest political friends and representatives in many states.
 "A number of the newer recruits to the Republican progressive cause, men who before 1909 with three or four exceptions, had either been opposed to the progressive movement, became the noisest supporters of Roosevelt the winner It mattered not to them that Roosevelt had co-operated with Aldrich on legislation during the sev- en years he was president. They for got that it was only when Roosevelt was out of office and in Africa, th rn oh offo of for years had been fighting special interests that the progressive cause became national movement. That Roosevelt was for Taft in 1910 when Taft was denouncing all progressives as pirates and traitors that he wait ed until little more than year ago for the balancing chances before de- ciding to cast in his lot with the pro- gressives in this presidential year, counted for nothing with the class of progressives who wanted to win not real progressive victory-just victory
 And they did win precisely that wind of victory. They carried over- Whelmingly the great stand pat states of Illinois and Pennsylvania. That stamped the Roosevelt candidacy with it's true character No real progress slve could have secured anything like such a vote in either of those two state. It nas, however, the outward seeming of success, that sort of suc- cess that intoXicates-that catches the crowd. It enables Roosevelt to win in two or three really progressive states. Fortunately it did not enable him to secure the nomination which would have compromised the progress sive movement and defeated real achievement for years.
 Upon Theodore Roosevelt and his followers rests the responsibility of having divided the progressives in their first national contest. Stimu- lated by an overmastering desire to wing they denounced loyalty to con- Viction and principle as stubborn sell fishness. In the convention they put forward no platform, no issues. They made no fight against the reactionary platform adopted. They substituted vulgar personalities and the coarse epithets of the prize ring for the serious consideration of great econo- mic problems and for the time being brought ridicule and contempt upon great cause; r tF S5s. s,l '" Bat tstheEprogfessive movement does not consist of a few self-constituted leaders. It consists of millions of thoughtful citizens drawn together by common belief in certain princi-