The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-06-17
AS white SEES IT
EmpOria Editor Sizes Up Re-
suits at st. Louis.
Everything Was Done to Catch
Bull Moose Votes.
NOT DISPOSED TO TAKE BAIT
lie Says ProgressiVes Are
Headed the Other Way.
There May Be a Change Later
in the Campaign.
BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE

BY WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE.
Copyright. 1916 George Mathew Adams
ST. Louis, June 17.-And now that
the tent is down and the show is over
al St. Louis, it may be well to con-
slider what it was all about, and why.
OF course it's obvious unanimity was
unique feature. Never since the Civil
war has any convention exhibited such
absolute one-mindedness as this con-
vention exhibited, and of course Will
son was the mind. But the purpose
of the convention was also undivided,
and that purpose was to get as many
of those four million Bull Moose votes
as possible. For without those votes
Mr.. Wilson is doomed. He was elect
ed as a minority president four years
ago, and unless he can get ct least
million of ROOSEVELT votes, Mr..
Hughes will win Hence the loud
pedal on AmericaniSIn, the emphasis
upon preparedness and the insistent
appeal to the PrcgreSSiveS to look at
ten into law by the Democratic con-
gress.
Striking out the defense of the pres
ident's Mexican policy, the Democratic
platform might have been turned over
as subcommittee draft in Progress
wonder the band in the Democratic
convention played Onward Christian
Soldier Thursday after cheering for
Wilson, and just before clamoring for
Bryan. For unless Mr.. Wilson and
Mr.. Bryan can get those Christian
soldiers to do little onwarding in
the Democratic direction, it will be a
sad day next November when the re-
turns come in
A Late Bull Mooser.
These lines are written by a late Bull
Mooser who is still wallowing luxur-
iously in his indecision. The writer has
no predictions, and can speak with
fairly clear vision, because at the mo-
ment he sees no great difference be-
tween the two platforms, nor any vast
cleavage between the two leaders of
the old parties Yet he feels that the
Progressive drift is rather away from
the Democrats than toward them.
In the south where Democratic votes
are not needed, the ProgressiveS will
go back. But in the middle west where
Bull Moose votes hold the balance of
power. the drift as far as it may be
determined by the first rush, is back
into the Republican party The Demo-
cratic platform will please the Pro-
gressives. They will chuckle. and
point to the plum they have pulled
out of the pie and say, What big
boy am l." But tradition will hold
them; they were not Democrats four
years ago, and SO long as the Repub-
lican platform contains about the
tariff commission and woman saf-
frage and rural credit - the
Progressives will accept their old
friends on their promises of good be-
havior and count themselves ahead
all that they have got from the Dem
ocrats- This of course is amazingly
bad politics; but it is good human
nature, and unless the situation
changes. unless, for instance, the old
guard gets arrogant the Progressives
for the most part will go back to their
early political habitation.
Roosevelt will not lead them there.
1t is his political misfortune that he is
and always has been unable to deliver
any votes to anyone but himself. The
two million slump of 1914 in the Pro-
ability to help anyone else. He could
not help Hughes any more than he
can help Wilson, or hurt him. But
what the colonel has done, is to leave
the Progressives in a frame of mind
where the foreign policy of the presi-
dent is held in rather low esteem.
Situation May Change.
OF course the summer may see the
entire foreign situation clear. and the
campaign in October may be hinged
upon political and economic issues
rather than upon the thing called
AmerlcanlSm and preparedness. Ii
the foreign situation does clear up,
then it is likely that the Progressives
will remember the appointment of
Brandeis, the insistence upon George
Rublee as member of the federal
trades commission. The Progressives
may even remember the passage of
the law creating that commission,
and may think of the tariff commits
sion, and the rural credit measure,
which are fundamentally not Demo-
cratic demands, but Progressive
measures, and then, the drift may be
back to Wilson. If not to the Demo-
cratic party.
But just now the onward move
ment of the late more or less lament
ed Christian Soldier is not in the
Democratic direction, and insofar as
It was an attempt to reenlist the Pro-
gressives under the Democratic ban
Ter. the Democratic convention. with
all it's joyous whooping during its lat
ter hours, does not seem to this af-
fiart at least to have accomplished
anv serious results.