Idaho County free press. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho Territory) 1886-current, 1914-03-26
PINCHOT GRILLs BoRAH.
Former Forestry Head Scores Idaho
Senator and Other Colleagues.

llvered at Huron, s. d., last week.
The republican party is thing of
the past. Disloyal to its traditions and
its record, split into factions, conten-
tious, unhappy, weak, it is seeking
feverishly for help that it can not find.
Its last days are upon it. Consider now
the contrast. United, homogeneous,
confident, strong, the progressive party
loyal to its principles and certain of
their success-has only just begun to
fight. The past belongs to the repub-
licans. The democrats are actually in
power. But to us belongs the future,
and that is the best of all.
The republicans are divided against
themselves. But we know that
house divided against itself can not
stand. More than that, the republican
house is founded on sand, the sand of
special privilege, and its foundations
are rotten with political corruption.
The rains have descended and the
floods are here, and the republican
house is crumbling to pieces in the sight
of all the people.
We are asked to move into this fall
ing house. Men like Cummins, Bris-
tow, Borah, Hadley and La Toilette,
calling themselves progressive repub-
licans, invite us to come and Join them
in the hopeless effort to prop up the
shaky ruins.
Of Cummins I speak with regret.
Struggling in backward of the cur
rent of political thought which once
he dominated; leader then, but now
behind the times; personally upright,
but blind to the fundamental division
between the men who work for right
eousness and the men who work against
it, Cummins is hopelessly out of touch
with the political thought of the day
into which his type of partizanship has
survived. And he never can get into
touch, just because he remains bound
by the very same partizan shackles
which warp his judgment now as they
did when in his famous speech before
the Hamilton club of Chicago he was
reported to have said in substance that
he would rather have the worst repub-
lican in office than the best democrat.
The truth is that when leader fails to
keep abreast of the best thought of his
time he soon becomes a brake and an
/ L,v,a 1,rn hn xuhn of
ress.
Borah is horse of another color.
Where Borah stands today on any
question is no slightest indication of
where he will stand tomorrow. So far
as his public record shows he has few
convictions that are not absolutely at
the service of his personal advantage.
Borah has earned, and well earned, the
plying contempt of all men of all
parties who believe that principles are
things to stand by even to man Is
own hurt.
Borah was the trusted representative
of the Roosevelt men before the com
mittee on credentials at Chicago, when
the theft of the nomination took place
that is to say, he was one of the two
most prominent opponents of the theft
the other being Governor Hadley. As
such he denounced unsparingly the
methods OF the thieves. But when the
stolen nomination had become fact
Borah swallowed his words, threw his
principles to the winds and from hav-
ing been the advocate and champion OF
the robbed turned himself into the sup
porter and defender Of the robbers.
It is his habit. He has been on both
sides of the conservation question, and
on both sides of the question of "a fed
eral child labor law. Just recently he
was first the most clamorous advocate
of an extraordinary republican nation
al convention to revise the party rules
and Immediately after its most clam
orous opponent. Unstable as water
Borah can never excel. He will moi
stand even when hitched by the rein
of his own public declarations.
Courage is the greatest political as
set, and the lack of courage the great
est political dtfect. Bristow has bro
ken his own career because he was
afraid. He was afraid to stand with
the men with whom he had worked and
fought year after year. Under the acid
test he fails. It is a matter for rea
and deep regret. He has chosen tt
change what might have been a great
battle for principle into pitiful scram
. BILE for place-a scramble in which vic
, tory would have hurt him almost a