Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-06-19
PROGRESSIVES TO
CONSIDER COURSE
State Committee to Decide
Saturday to Go 1t Alone or
Approve Fusion.
BY HERMAN 3. WALKER

Whether eneourag cement shall be
given to those Republican leaders who
are willing to consider fusion with
the Progressive party, or the Pro-
gressives shall insist upon going il
alone. is one of the questions likely
10 be threshed out at the conference
of the Progressive State Committee to
be held Saturday at the Hotel Mon
terev. Asbury Park
The conference will be. for the most
part. an informal affair. Men and
women from all parts of the State
prominent in the Progressive party
have been invited to be present and
take part and to bring their families
and friends along with them.
Campaign methods and methods of
financing the campaign this fall are
among the important questions to be
talked over. The difficulty of reach
ing all the voters in the State in
gubernatorial campaign by new
party is the most serious problem the
Progressives have 10 work out Al
effort will be made Saturday to ind
some plan by which the program and
purpose Of the new party may be eX-
planned to every voter before election
day
Much candidate" Talk Likely.
While the state committee itself
will not take any part, as a commit
tee. in deciding or indorsing= candida
cies. there is likely to be lot OF
talk at the conference, or during 1t, !
about candidates The gubernatoriaI
question, naturally. win attract most
attention.
With the Democrats badly split up /
In a three-cornered primary fight, (
divided on purposes and program +
lacking leadership and united or /
ganization. and the Republicans, ap-
parently. without leadership, program
or purpose. the Progressives believe
they have a chance to elect a gov
ernor and a fair proportion of mem
bers of the Legislature this fall
The announcement by Chairman
Nakelee, Of the Republican State
-Committee. that the Republican or
ganization is willing to fuse and ac-
-eept a Progressive platform and
Progressive candidate, if the candi-
date is Everett Colby and the plat
form is not too radical, will be talked
over at the conference.
It seems to be taken for granted
that Colby will be a candidate for
the Progressive nomination for Gov
ernor. and that he will be opposed
by either Edmund B. Osborne or
George l.. Record in the primaries.
There has not been entire harmony
between the Colby faction and the
Progressives in Hudson and Passaic
and other sections of the State since
the year in which Record ran against
the late Senator John F. Dryden for
the Republican nomination for United
States senator, and the Colbyites in
Essex refused to support Records
candidacy. Osborne has for several
wears trained with Record politically.
and this has won him the opposition
of the Colby faction in the old New
Idea ranks in Essex.
Another Problem.
Whether Colby proposes to run, if
he does run, in both the Republican
and Progressive primaries, and how
he would secure the Republican in
dorsement if he did not run in the
Republican primaries. are questions
that will likely be talked over az
Saturdays conference. If the com
mlttee should decide against enter
tanning any talk of fusion, on any
terms. this would not, of course,
bind any candidate, and Colby or
anybody else who obtained the Pro-
gressive nomination. would be free
to take the Republican nomination
as well, if he could get it.
The general belief among Progress
sive leaders is that Wakelee's eX-
pressed willingness to accept Colby
and a Progressive program, is a
bluff, and that the Republican pro-
gram is really to nominate former
Governor Edward c. Stokes on
platform which will be sufficiently
progressive to win votes from the
more conservative members of the
Progressive party and at the same
time be sufficiently conservative to