The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1916-11-18
Graphic Picture of the Hope
Felt When Hughes Was
Named and the Keen Dis
appointment That Follow
ed the Progress Of His
Campaign.
Chicago Tribun.)

Campaign.
(Chicago Tribun.)
At the Chicago convention the
Tribune opposed the nomination Of
Mr. Hughes as it advocated that of
Colonel Roosevelt. When the nomi-
nation Of Mr. Hughes became inevi-
table it urged upon Mr.. Hughes a
course which it frankly asserted
could alone prevent defeat. Mr..
Hughes was nominated and he did
not follow the course advocated by
the Tribune. There was left to this
newspaper, then, the choice between
two men, neither of whom stood
squarely upon the principles that
seemed to the Tribune sound. In this
situation the Tribune accepted Mr..
Hughes because it believed he would
make the better President. Having
explained itse own attitude, the Trib-
une feels free now to express it's view
of the result.
More completely than any defeat
ed candidate for the presidency in our
own time, Mr.. Hughes has been the
architect Of his own misfortune. The
campaign which he made was his
own campaign; it's character, its con-
tent and it's absence of content were
of his own choosing, and the respon-
sibility for defeat is his own.
And yet in the larger sense the de-
feat of Mr.. Hughes is the defeat the
all-inclusive defeat, of his party lead
ers 1t was a bankrupt Leadership
which named Mr.. Hughes. Those
who named him named him because
they believed that his solvency would
rescue their moral insolvency. The
task set for Mr.. Hughes was a task
| that only a great man could have
performed, and in his effort to per-
form it Mr.. Hughes showed no quail
ity of greatness. It was essential that
he should rise above his party, and he
was able only to keep step with it.
The single chance Of victory lay in
an appeal that should transcend all
party lines, and at all times Mr..
Hughes spoke as the narrowest of
partisans.
The Chicago convention sat in
cowardice and wrought in selfishness.
It cared nothing for principle. 1t
cared nothing for patriotism. The
| moral issues and the spiritual forces
that were abroad in the nation were
without meaning to it. All TINT
had happened in recent months all
that was stirring in a people deeply
moved by world events and domestic
crises, left it cold It had no other
thought save that of winning; it had
no concern for principle for past sac
rifice or present duty; 1t was willing
to take votes where it could get them
and at any price.
After the Chicago convention there
was no longer a question of Republi-
can leadership in the nation. There
was no longer a lingering suspicion
that the party which met in the Chi
cago convention hall was the moral
heir of the party which assembled
under the oaks at jackson 60 years
before. AS leaders the Republican
chiefs revealed themselves for what
they were in their party's latest ma
tional convention, and from the spec
tacle men turned away in disgust, in
a despair, tempered only by the hope
that the candidate named would live
down the discredit of the party lead
ers and the convention which named
him.
There was something of real pa
thos il, the fashion in which millions
of men and women waited on the
first words of Mr.. Hughes. -"
And who is there that has fo--
gotten the chill that came with the
first words Of Mr.. Hughes? Who IS
there who can or will forget the
sense Of disappointment, of grief, OF
establishment, that came with the
opening addresses of the new can
didate? A world was on fire; abroad
the whole fabric. OF, human society
was in the throes Of a tremendous
struggle; at home the very founda-
tons of our unity and our existence
were threatened, and in the face Of
all this the man to whom we had
turned for deliverance could find no
Drawer word and no loftier sentiment
than those which have fallen from
the lips of cart-tail orators since poll
teal campaigns began.
We asked-him to give us just a
little Of light and of leading; we ask
ed him to speak just one word that
should put courage and self-respect
and old-fashioned patriotism into our
hearts, and he talked to us of jobs,
patronage, post-ofices and place
holders. We asked him to give US an
echo Of those ideas and ideals which
had stirred the Progressive party and
made it's great revolt one of the most
memorable and hopeful things in our
national life, and he responded with
the gross and sofdid 1naterialism of
the campaign orators who 20 years
ago spoke to the order of Mark Han
ma.
The Republican, party in conven-
ton assembled had failed the nation
The candidate of the Republican con-
vention, once he took the field, could
only express in words what the Re-
publican convention had expressed
in deeds. We who had hoped for a
leadership which should burst apart