The Washington times., 1913-01-14


lished in,my newspapers, plan for getting the
Republican and Progressive parties together in
one organization
In the very outset said was throwing out
| the idea for what it was worth Measured by the
wide discussion it has provoked and the extraord-
nary amount of newspaper publicity it has had, it
was quite worth while.
Anything that causes people to think, any,
thing that focuses thought on theme of great ma
tional importance, is decidedly worth while
AS to the practcability of the idea, it may
have little merit or may be wholly without merit
But as compared with no plan at all, it is whale
of an idea.
1t is an easy thing for the man who never
has an idea or if perchance he has one and hasn't
the courage to put it out to crticise the idea of
the other fellow.
The world is made up of two classes-the
do-somethings and the do-nothings And the do
nothings work much harder than the do-some-
things in their untring efforts to block the wheels
of the do-somethings.
Anything that is radically new is necessarily
radically wrong. No trail leads to the clearing till
it becomes highway.
Anything dealing with a subject on which
people are so sensitive as politics gets it good and
plenty if it isn't conventional to degree.
A proposal to do something out of the ordi-
nary is satirzed, ridiculed, and slugged, not be-
cause it lacks merit, not because it won't fit the
case, but because it isn't, or hasn't been. The
measure of slavery to what is or to what has been
is appalling.
View my suggestion of amalgamation as you
will it has had the merit of revealing the attitude
of the voters of the two parties, and this is some
thing of real importance. We have pretty good
idea now of where we stand; we had no definite
idea before 1t was not known whether the Re-
pubcans would accept such suggestion gra-
ciously, or would arrogantly Spurn it; it was not
known whether the Progressives would look upon
it with favor or would coldly oppose it..
hadn't very large measure of confidence !
in the idea being graciouSly and favorably re-
ceived by the Republicans; fancied the Progress
Sives would see in it some practical common
sense. reasoned that brand-new organization
would be less in rut, less welded to name, and
free from slavery to party traditions
The evidence, as it comes in from the whole
country, reveals the Republicans as in receptive
-anxiously receptive, for the most part
for political union if it can be brought about in
mutually satisfactory way. On the other hand,
the Progressives, for the most part, to Judge from
the evidence have, turn a cold shoulder on the
idea of amalgamation of any kind. In their tri-
umph over the Republicans at the polls in Novem-
Der, and in their zeal for the new party they feel
strong enough to 60 it alone, confident in the be-
lief that recruits in great numbers are sure to
flock to them.
This is not the opinion of all Progressives,
but should say it is that of very large majority
of them. The men of the Progressive party
naturally differ in their opinions and shades of
opinions, as do the men of all other parties They
do not all think by stereotyped formula
'Analganation, or non-amalgamation, is
matter of temperament and of individual opinion
Speaking for myself, am convinced that the de-
sirable thing to do, the commonsenSe thing to do,
and the safe thing to do in the present situation
is to weld the scattered units of men thinking
alike into one organization that will have bgness il
and virility and power-power to contest the field
successfully with the Democratic party.
base this statement on the assumption that
the union would be brought about without the