Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-08-28
Washington
Y ' LETTER
BY F. WALKER
ata. scar rorrasnondent.
JUNGLE JOE" JoLTS MOOSE
Star star Correspondent.
Star Bureau,
MetrODolitan National Bank Bldg,
WASHINGTON, Aug. 90.

| ting ready to run for Congress on the
Republican ticket again next year has
acted like a cold shower bath on the
enthusiasm of those Republican pro-
gressives in Congress and elsewhere
who have been planning the regenera-
ton and restoration to power of the
G.. o. p. as a party cleansed and puri-
fed of all its sins and iniquities and
dedicated anew to the cause of the
common people.
There are men left in the Repub-
lican party who really believe II could
be regenerated and made strong and
mighty again to gain public conf
dence and give public service. The
trouble is they are almost every
where in minority in their own
party ranks. In most of the States
the Progressive party last fall welded
out of the Republican organization a
great majority of the men who were
dissatisfied with the corporation af-
filiations, money power and reaction
airy ideas which for years had con-
trolled it. Men like LaFo1lette, Cum
Minis, Norris, of Nebraska; Works, of
California; henroot and Cooper, of
Wisconsin, and a few score others
among the national and State leaders,
gagged at Taft and the Payne-Aldr!ch
tariff, but refused to surrender their
iued VI lIldhlIB lIle TlepuDllCdH purity
a party of progressive and popular
ideas and policies. These men have
been planning and working to bring
the G. o. p. back into the congress
sional fight next fall relieved of it's
chief devils and purged of its evil in
fiuences and domination. They really
believed they could do 1t.
Now these progressive Republicans
are awakening to the fact that they
are more than ever in a minority in
their own party. With the progress
sives taken out, they find that they
are left as progressive leaders with
out a following. In the party or
CARNATIONS, national and state, the
reactionaries are in full control, and
the apparent purpose of most of the
Bull Moosers to keep the new party
alive, leaves the reactionary forces
more dominant even in Republican
councils than they were before the
break at Chicago last year.
In. the tariff fight, there are three
parties in the Senate The Dem
ocrats, standing for their own pro-
gram, have a divided opposition to
help them. Penrose, Lodge, Smoot
and the score or so of high tariff
standpatters remaining are as much
opposed to the middle of the road
moderate duty progressives as they
are to the revenue tariff ideas of the
Democrats. The efforts of Cummins,
Crawford and a few others to have
a special Republican convention
called to revise the rules of the Re-
publican national organization and
to recognize presidential primaries are
making no Roadway, and to cap the
climax Cannon has re-entered the
ring with a familiar trumpet call to
the reactionary interests, announcing
that the period of progressive fana-
ticisrn and radical nostrums has run
Its course, and the people are ready |
to return to the haven of safe and |
sane Republicanism of the OILS stand
pat type.
Instead of staying dead, the old |
crowd of Republican leaders declares
intention of being made progressive |
or abandoning party control that the
progressives may assume command.
The talk of Roosevelt as a Repub-
lican presidential possibility in 1916
makes good newspaper headings.
Otherwise 1t probably has little mean
ing. Nobody doubts for a minute
that Roosevelt would take the Re-
publican nomination if he could get
1t and could write the party platform.
And If the Progressives who left the
Republican party with him could be
induced to go back into the Repub-
lican primaries, very possibly Roose-
welt could again carry the primaries.
as he did last year. Still the situa-
ton, even then, would be as 1t was
last year With the National Com
mittee dominated by the old bosses,
and the old crowd hating Roosevelt
and his radical ideas, T. r. as a Re-
publican candidate again is not a Sc
rious probability at this time, al
though it must be admitted that
many things may happen before 1915,
and both politics and T. r. are very
largely unknown quantities.
Several years ago l secured the in
PRODUCTION OF bills for the initiative
Assembly, and a Democratic House
came within two or three votes of
passing them. The Republicans, as
/ remember, were all against the
Woodrow Wilson was con-
verified to the principle of the three
radical twins of Democracy over
night, but after announcing his con-
version apparently lost interest in
them excepting as q part of the
commission government plan.
In New Jersey both the radical and
wings of the Progressive
party are conjuring with the name
of Roosevelt The Colbyites accuse
Osborne of being more radical than
Roosevelt, in his declaration for pub
lie ownership of railroads and utilities
and exemption of buildings and per-
sonal property from taxation, and
abandonment of the protective tariff
The Osborne wing accuses Colby of
r.r.nnracctNn
welt. Colby has always been luke
warm as to the initiative and referen-
dunn, which Roosevelt declares
fundamental principles of the new
party, and SHES at 7. RS private
and particular proposal for referen-
dunn or recall on judicial decisions.
Roosevelt did not write the Progress
sive party platform last year, but he
accepted it, as did many men who
did not agree with all parts of the
document. Before he was elected to
the presidency. it has been stated
without denial, T. r. was a member
of the Golden Club of New York,
a free trade organization. In his
seven years in the White House he
carefully managed to keep away from
the tariff question, and there are
more than a few mems in public life
who believe the necessity for the Re-
puDnCdn party OuhlhB Soiiic otoiiu Vh
tariff revision in 1908 had more than
anything else to do with his refusal
TO consider a denomination in that
year.
In numerous speeches and mes
sages during his term as President,
Roosevelt held up public ownership of
railroads and utilities as inevitable if
regulation was not agreed to in such
form as would produce satisfactory
results.