Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-05-15
7ashington
w LETTER
A cUMMINs BOOM ALONE
BY H. 3. WALKER
Star stan Correspondent.
Star Bureau,
Metropolitan National Bank Bldg.
WASHINGTON. May ID.

I NAHAASOAONs may 10
That Chicago conference to plan
for reconciliation and reunion of
the Progressive and Republican
parties has fallen pretty fiat. If one
is to judge from the opinion OF rep
resentative Republicans and Progress
sives here and the tone of the news
papers throughout the country.
Both Progressive party members.
who were urged by those at the con-
ference to come back into camp. and
conservative Republicans, who had
no part In the Chicago doings. are
wondering just who the Chicago
conferees spoke for when they issued
their invitation and planned the re-
organization of the Republican party
Conducted by oummins.
The Chicago conference just ended
was arranged and personally con-
Quoted by Senator Cummins. of Iowa
There is no doubt of Cummins's pro-
gressiveness or independence. He has
continued a Republican through thick
and thin, regardless of candidates or
principles, and he is willing to be
regarded as one of the national lead
ers of the Republican party. A can
didate for the presidency in
1903, and for the presidency in 1912,
with no support outside his own State
in either year. Cummins has a far
eye on the presidential nomination
in 1916.
pof1ad ,7ou,o 70 tie inxuar5s 4ha
Chicago meeting the other day seems
to have been little more or less than
rather poorly advertised and some
what premature attempt to put life
into a Cummins presidential BOOM
Wants Party's Support.
It is known that Cummins is will
ing to take the Republican nominal
ton, and anxious to have the Pro-
gressive support. in the next Presi-
Dental campaign. His difficulty is
that it looks as though it would be
about equally difficult for him to get
either.
While there is a good-sized group
of earnest and progressive Republic
can senators, representatives gov
ernors and other representative men
of honesty and ability who have re-
fused to affiliate with the Progress
sive party, and who are anxious for
reconciliation of the two parties, the
difficulty with their position is that
they have always been, and still are,
in small minority in their own
party.
La Toilette, Cummins, Borah, Ken
yon. Bristow and other prominent
Progressive Republicans who are
seeking to force progressivism upon
the Republican party are simply con-
tinuing their fight of several years
past. They do not control their party.
They do not speak for it. In the
House and the Senate these Progress
i've Republicans are as much dis
trusted and suspected by the con-
sentative Republican leaders and rep
resentatives as are the Progressives.
Penrose s.iH Leader.
In the Senate today Penrose is the
recognized Republican leader In the
House the fifteen or so Progressives
who still call themselves Republicans
refuse to follow the leadership of
Mann and openly repudiate action of
the Republican caucus.
The exact situation is that the
group of Western Republican insur-
gents who started out eight years
ago under La Follette's leadership to
effect reform within their own party
is still practically intact in Congress.
OF the original insurgents, the only
open and avowed Bull Moosers are
Clapp, of Minnesota Beveridge, OF
Indiana, and Murdoch, of Kansas
The rest of the insurgent group is
still Republican, and 1t is a larger
group than in its incipiency, but it is
still a minority group. 1t does not
dominate, and it cannot dominate, the
Republican party. 1t is hardly rep
resented on the Republican National
Committee, or the Republican Con-
gressional Committee, and it is en-
tirely out Of harmony with the Re-
publican leadership and organization
in the two houses of Congress.
Rooseveit's Influence.
Personal and sectional interests and
! jealousy of Roosevelt have kept most
of the members of this group from
leaving the Republican party. They
| tried to make their party Progress
| i've, and failed. Last year they saved
their party regularity, if nothing else,
and are now in the embarrassing po-
sition of being left tied by their own
action to a moldering corpse which
| is too heavy for them to throw over
board and too dead to care about be-
| ing resuscitated.
There is another reason. In Iowa,
Kansas. Nebraska, Wisconsin and
few other Western States the Re-
publican organization is progressive
and is controlled by members of this
insurgent group. And they don't
want to give up the party organiza-
ton they control. In the Eastern and
Southern States, however the Re-
publican organization is wholly in the
control of the conservatives and re-
dictionaries. And these Eastern and
Southern members dominate the ma
tional committee and the majority
| councils of the party
sReactionaries Control
There is no apparent disposition