New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1915-04-12
A Local Disgrace Become
National Peril.

ton. already a local disgrace, is passing
rapidly to the condition Of national
party peril. In other days a Republican
LEGISLATURE in Albany might perhaps with
only parochial injury to the Republican
party condemn women and children to
seventv-two hours of work a week, attack
the health laws of the state and undertake
TO destroy the laws protecting the comfort
and safety of the city jewellers in tene-
ments. But these times have passed.
All over the United States men and
women are asking themselves what are
the spirit the purpose, the mental and the
moral fibre of those who are leading a Re-
publican party recently returned to con-
troll i'm certain states, but still minority
party in the country. They are asking
this question because they have yet to
make up their minds whether to return to
a party TO which they once belonged and
from which they went forth in 1912, be-
ieving that it had become blind to the
new demands and the higher standards Of
politics and public life which they saw
about them.
Several millions of these voted for
Theodore Roosevelt in 1912. A very large
number Of them, incensed at Democratic
failure in the nation, justly enraged at
such scandals as the Tammanyized gov
ernment of New York State furnished,
voted with the Republicans in 1914, and
gave them many local victories, but not
majority in the nation or in the House Of
REPRESENTATIVES. Yet not a few still re-
NAMED outside the party lines and voted
for Progressive candidates, thus robbing
Republican victories of any decisive char
acter.
On the strength Of these local victories
it was possible that the Republican leaders
in the several states would see a new Ii +
cense to repeat all the old offendings
which made 1912 a year of party disaster.
1t was conceivable that these leaders
would believe that business depression
and Democratic ineptitude would combine
to give to them period Of immunity with
in which they could do things which were
abhorrent to all but the professional pol
iticians and in ordinary times would in
sure Immediate and overwhelming defeat
Such a policy was plainly a resort to
mere gambling. 1t was deliberate as
sumption that so unpopular was the VIII
son administration that for year all Re
publican offences would be overlooked by a
country whose eyes were fixed upon the
! Washington situation. Patiently, too, this
policy comprehends completely all that
there is Of purpose or intelligence in the
Republican leadership in the State of New
York. For nowhere so completely, so
brazenly as in this state have the whole
fortunes of a party been staked upon this
single card; nowhere have Republican
leaders cambIcd SO reckcssly as at Al
bany
But now there is every sign that one of
the elements on which the Republican
leaders in this state relied is rapidly dis
appearing. SO far as man can now fore
see, we shall not have hard times to make
Republican votes in 1916. On the con-
trary. there is plain promise that by that
time a measure of prosperity uneXampled
in a decade will have returned TO this
country. One of the main reliances of
Republican leadership will have gone glim-
mering.
Such being the case, to what extent will
the unpopularity Of the Wilson admins
tration, based upon such grotesque fail
ures as fill the Cabinet, such complete
mishandlings of national affairs as are re-
vealed in the Mexican policy such viola
tons of legislative and economic princi-
pies as the attempted ship purchase bill,
weigh against the record Of the newly re-
turned Republican party, as expressed in
the Albany proceedings of this year?
Without a return of the larger share
of the Progressives the chance of Re
publican victory in 1916 is not Overwhelm-
inc. But are ProgreSsives to be won back
by such legislation as is being enacted at
Albany at the present hour? VIII the
thousands and thousands Of sincere and
earnest men and women, for whom 1912
and the Progressive movement meant a.
revolution for social justice, be won back
by craftsmanship which is expressed IN /
legislation condemning women and chill
dren to seyonty-two hours of work week
in canning factories? viii the traffic in
the health and comfort Of the poor, the
tenement dwellers, by Republican legis-