The Grangeville globe. [volume] (Grangeville, Idaho) 1907-1922, 1914-07-09
FORGET THE PAST; LOOK TO
THE FUTURE


Oregonian: Colonel Roosevelt's crit
icisms of the Wilson administration
will receive hearty Endorsement from
those millions of patriotic Americans
who are dissatisfied with Mr.. Wilson's
policies and their disastrous effects on
the internal prosperity and the external
interests, prestige and power of the ma
ton. His structures on the tariff policy
of the democrats accord with the opin-
IONS of republicans and progressives
alike SO does his condemnation of
democratic foreign policy. IL the prac-
tice of vacillation and yielding and of
chasing the rainbow of universal peace
can he dignified by that name. The
administration has betrayed the inner
ent weakness of a party which stil
maintains that this nation is composed
OF forty eight units. not one unit. and
which is afraid of power exercised by
the national government
Since Colonel Roosevelt so effective
~ voices the sentiments of both his
former party and his present party, it
Is cause for regret that he does not
concentrate = his mind on the present
and the future instead Of the past: that
he does not apply his energies to COM
bining these parties into an effective
political fighting force for expulsion
of the incompetent party from power.
When he wrangles with Senator PEN
rose about the events of 1912, he is
thrashing old straw. The people are
concerned now not with the question
who was responsible for the split Of
1912. not with the question who was
right and who was wrong In that year.
but with the question of supplanting
II
tents with body of competents, who
will restore and maintain prosperity at
home and who will uphold the interests
honor and dignity of the nation abroad.
Republicans and progressives are of
one mind on the tariff. foreign pol
icy, on efficient exercise of the nation
al power. They are substantially agreed
on legislation against the trusts. though
the republicans are not disposed to so
to such lengths as Colonel Roosevelt
proposes in bureaucratic control of bust
ness. They cannot gain the opportun
ity to put their principles in effect SO
long as they remain divided into two
parties; they thereby only prolong the
reign =. of democracy, which they unite
In condemning Persistence in fighting
over again their old quarrels will be
taken by the vast body of Independent
voters as evidence of theier incapacity
to rule the best evidence of capacity
which they can give is to forget old
quarrels and work together or the at
tainment OF those ends on which they
are agreed.
This is not to say that Colonel Roose-
welt should cease his opposition to the
election of Senator Penrose in Penn
syivania and to the supremacy of
Chairman Barnes in New York. Let
him fight them and extinguish them
Ii he can. No tears over their fate
would be shed by the great body of
republicans in the country at large,
for love of bosses is limited to their
own states. Neither of them Is big
enough in the eyes of the nation to
be upheld politically at the price of
continued democratic misrule. They are
generally regarded as survivors of the
old, bad system typified by their pre-
decessors Plat and Quay, and the re
publican party would gladly be rid of
them. But those are local fights, to
be fought out in two states, and they
should not obstruct the realignment un-
der one banner of the adherents of re
publican principles in the country at
large
Coionei Roosevelt surely must reallze
by this time that he cannot get any
where with his progressive party as
separate political organization. The
most he can accomplish is that which
as patriotic citizen. he must least de-
sire-prolonged democratic control He
cannot be blind to the fact that. with
or without him. the progressive voters
are returning in droves to the repub-
lican party. His Immediate aim-the
elimination of the bosses. Barnes. PEN
rose and their kind-would be far SOON
er attained If the republican party of
other states than New York and Penn
sylvania were lined up with him than
If he carried on the fight from without.
with greatly diminished ranks. permit
ting those men to figure as represent
atives of republicanism in a contest
with a hostile party.