Arizona republican., 1913-05-19

discredited them. Nothing save their
 own claim now gives title to these
 gentlemen to assert republican leaders.
 There Is no pretense of other author
 ity in their proposition. It has and it
 pleads but one justifica tion-that of
 their own dire necessity Their per
 sonal situation, because of their re-
 fusal to take the open, honest course, gently need relief They could have got relief last year and they can still get it, but there is only one way to get it and that is by joining the pro-
 gressive party, and not, they pro pose, by having the progressives join the republican party and surrender the incalculable advance that has been won by a years effort.
 The reforms these gentlemen now propose for adoption by the republican
 party are not new. They themselves have proposed the same reforms be- fore and the republican leaders to whom the proposition was submitted scornfully rejected them. What evi- dence or hope is there now that the
 republican leaders of today. who are
 the identical individuals who before re buffed these gentlemen, will now ad- init their error and reform?
 ] When these gentlemen were rebuffed
 previously, men who believed with
 them turned to the leadership that has
 since crystallized into the progressive
 party Under that leadership, every one of the reforms that they then pro-
 
 part of the progressive party law. But theses men who had the opportunity to strike a telling. effectual blow in be- half of the reforms in which they pro- fessed to believe, hung back, hinder ing rather than helping the work. and now they have the iron effrontery to ask the Progressive party to abandon the reforms actually accomplished and turn backward and help them in re- newed effort to enforce these same re- forms upon the unwilling republican leaders who have already refused them They ask the progresives to give up achieved success in order to undertake movement which experience has al ready proved to be hopeless. What nonsense can exceed that?
 These gentlemen met in Chicago on their own invitation, by their own au thority. and they represent themselves and nobody else. Their invitation to the progressives to come backward into the party which they denounced last year and which in turn denounced them is not supported by the public word or act of any recognized republi- can leader. So far as the real republi- ! can leaders have commented upon the they have decried and dis 1 aVowed it. It is obvious that the re- publican party is not in sympathy with | and does not endorse the conference | of these self-appointed Headers" or it's ! action.
 So far as the progressives are con- | there has never for moment | been any possibility of a favorable re- | sponse to such an invitation. The pro- gressive party was formed last year upon definite declaration of con 1 crete principles to which the repubIi- l ,an party is unalterably opposed. The l have never had and have not now the slightest intention of abandoning those principles The re- publican leadership permanently reac- ionary. has not the slightest inten- ion of subscribing to them. The union of the two parties is an idle dream. It f. s a waste of time and energy to give | { consideration