Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1916-09-01
WHY PROCRESS|vES
AREN'T "RETURN|NC"
REASONS FOR NATION-VJDE RC
VOLT THAT HUGHES FACES
ANALYZED.
BY Vance G. Mccormick, Chairman ~
the Democratic National Com
mittee.

That Mr. Charles E. Hughes is fac.
ing a nationwide revolt by the Pro.
gressives as announced by The Phila.
delphia North American, the leading
Progressive organ of the East, is one
of the most logical events of the cam
pagn.
Mr.. Hughes is not a Progressive.
never has been Progressive, and by
reason of his mental makeup, his
traditional outlook upon life, not to
mention his obligations to his reac-
tionary political sponsors, never can
be a Progressive.
His nomination this year, next in
order after that of Mr. Taft in 1912.
by the same men that nominated Mr..
Taft and against the protest of the
Progressive element in the conven-
ton, just as Mr.. Taft's nomination
was made against the protest of the
Progressives in the convention in
l9l2, was practically an ultimatum
to the progressive element in the Re-
publican party that no Progressive
can obtain nomination for president
in that party.
With Roosevelt as its first choice.
the Progressive convention of 1915
apparently was willing to indorse any
nominee by the Republicans as Sec
ond choice and thus return to its
original party fold under the olive
branch held out by the Republican
convention. With genuine Pro-
gressive candidate named by the Re-
publicans. there would have been no
humiliating of the Progressives in re-
uniting with the Republican party.
Hughes support Analysed.
But how could a candidate who
owed his nomination to the reaction
airy bosses of the Republican party
and whose only hope of election was
in their successful manipulation of
politics, adopt Progressive ideas with
out betraying the men who gave him
his nomination, and forfeiting their
support?
Besides. there is nothing in the
public records of Mr.. Hughes to show
he ever was in sympathy with Pro-
gressive principles or policies. His
entire administration as governor of
New York was marked by only one
act of progressive egislaton-the
sion.
There is nothing illogical, however,
in Mr.. Hughes attitude toward the
Progressives. Only Il man who is in
touch with public opinion and who is
responsive to it can be truly progress
sive. Mr.. Hughes has been out of
touch with public opinion for six
years, if, indeed. he was ever in
touch with it, and it is now too late
in the campaign to get in touch with
it at partisan meetings.
Wilson Directly the Opposite.
In this respect he is the antithesis
OF his opponent, President Wilson,
who, as an educator and public Of
fetal has been in constant touch with
public opinion for many years and has
been not only responsive to it, but
has been it's greatest modern inter-
prefer. Thus it is that President Will
son became the cOuntry's leading pro-
Democrat, and thus 1t was
that many more progressive meas
ures of legislation have been passed
in his administration than have been
passed by the Republican party since
the administration of Lincoln.
The recognition of these facts, as
we'll as the complete failure of Mr..
Hughes to develop progressive ten
denotes, are the reasons why the Pro-
gressiyes are deserving Mr. Hughes
and his reactionary sponsors and
turning to support Woodrow Wilson
in numbers that promise to include
lot only a substantial majority of
hat party as at present constituted,
out large number of Progressives
VINO had returned to the Republican
party in the mistaken belief that it
would profit by it's experience of 1912
md give proper recognition to the
progressive element through which it
night only hope for regeneration and
salvation.
Mr.. Hughes has not only failed to
'eunite the Progressives with the Re-
but at this writing his par
1san Republican attitude and his re-
ponse to Progressive sentiment
promise in but little less degree a re-
lewal of the revolt of the Progress
ives in 1912 which left the Repub-
lean party in control only of the
tates of Utah and Vermont.