Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-08-02
Chairman Murdoch of Pro-
qressives Announces Party
/ Will Nominate Early.
CALLS THE TAFT WING
"BOURBON" REPUBLICANS
Predicts Bryan 1nsurrection-De
clares Old Organizations Will
Stand Pat.

: MOUNT PLEASANT, Iowa. August ..
Victor Murdoch of Kansas, chairman
OF the progressive national committee,
makes the following statement:
II have just completed a three-month
personal canvass of the situation with
the progressives in the central west
and on the Pacific coast, and after
making it l am ready to say flatfoot-
eddy that we progressives are going
into the 1916 fight as a party, and to
win.
Moreover, a meeting of representa-
tive progressives held this month in
New York city reported the same con-
ditionS in the east that I have found
in the west and they are lining up for
the next battle. This also is the sent-
ment of the progressive national COM
mittee. We will hold our national
convention early and nominate a ticket.
The great convention battles of 1916
will not be over candidates., but will be
over platforms. The storm will rage,
not in the committee on credentials,
but in the committee on resolutions.
Calls Standpatters 'Bourbons.
THE bourbon republican leadership
will not only insist on a standpat can
didate. but will fight for an unstinted
and unequivocal Endorsement of the
administration of William H. Taft, in,
GLIDING the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill
1.-THE democratic leadership likewise
will point with pride to the equally
lamentable Underwood tariff
bill. Bryan instruction of the first
magnitude will cancel the one-term
presidential pledge and other Bryan
propaganda.
THE progressives will reiterate and
re-emphasize their Chicago platform
of 1872. That platform remains the
most nearly perfect utterance of the
principles Of the Abraham Lincoln of
modern times.
Both in Its protest against the in
roads of privilege fattening on an era
of gross materialism and in its prac-
tical program of concrete economic
remedies the progressive platform has
become to hundreds of thousands Of
aggressive Americans the ark of the
covenant, and there is not a township
anywhere without its group of Gil -ites
devoted wholly and solely to it's pres
ervation.
The progressives have the right plan
for the tariff and other economic is
sues. including the trust problem.
Democrats Failed, He Says.
THE democratic leadership after two
and half years trial has signally
failed in solving the nations economic
questions. Its tariff law, slammed to-
gether under the old log-rolling lead
ership. is utterly unproductive of any
of the results previously claimed for
it. Its trust legislation founders; its
attempts at development of American
ocean-goins craft have fizzled. That
this is the judgment of the voter is
amply evidenced by the tremendous
Anti-democratic sentiment that has de-
veloped at the polls at virtually every
election in the last two years. At
q republican ballot because he be-
lieved that the republican leadership
had learned it's lesson and would here
after take the progressive path.
But now the voters know for a GER
tainty that when the republican lead
ership has been restored to power it
has shown more, not less. reactionary
tendencies, as is notably evidenced by
the actions of the legislatures in New
In hand with the progressive propo-
sition to encompass social and indus
trial justice, goes the necessity of
solving the great economic problems
of the country. not on the basis of
political advantage, of which prac-
tice both the old parties are Infamous
ly guilty, but on the basis of service
to society.
Progressives Ready.
Everywhere found those pro-
gressives who made the fight of 1912