New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-11-11

He maintains that he was getting along
we'll until about two weeks before cleo
/ ton. when again he was shunted aside;
/ that he did not get the money he asked
/ for-for Kansas, for instance and
/ that his efforts met with such annoy
/ ing interference that they were barren
/ of results. He thinks If his orders were
carried out the result would have been
different. So take your pick. The west
was lost and somebody is to blame.
California Is Discussed
/ Then they pick on California. Not a
/ few of the nations political leaders oil
Republican faith think people did not
/ take any stock in issues this year at
all-only voted. That diagnosis is ap-
piled to California, but with a different
/ twist. Out there persons did not vote
on issues, but on persons and person
/ alities. All of which starts and finishes
with the first campaign trip of Charles
/ Z. Hughes.
When Hughes left California on his
return to the East he admitted to close
! friends that a serious mistake had been
made. The mistake turned out to be so
serious as to amount TO about 100000
votes. That is the plurality of Hiram
/ Johnson. Republican and Progressive
candidate for United States Senator. A
few thousand votes more compose IN ,
plurality of President Wilson.
The answer now is simple. When
Hughes went 20 California, against the
advice Of experienced politicians, who
thought il was too early. he tried to
avoid the bitter state fight there be-
tween the Republicans and Progress
sives. Instead the old-line RepubI-
cans. politically angry at Hiram John
son because he controlled the Leading
party in the state, while the Republican
party.was fourth in numerical strength,
/ used Hughes in an effort to defeat
/ Johnson in the Republican Senatorial
/ primaries. Hughes was the victim, and
/ he did not realize it until the harm was
done.
Progressives Are Serious
California Progressives take their
progressivism seriously. So, when
Hughes was piloted about the state by
state Chairman Croker, who typIhed
10 Progressive Californians the Repub-
4 lean leader inimical to their ideals,
and when Hughes, the candidate, failed
10 meet Johnson whosever fault IL
was at the time Johnson was branding
Croker as the representative OF tine
interests" Progressives did lot OF
thinking. Johnson won in the Repubh-
can and Progressive primaries. Then
/ the political knives were sharpened and
/ the opposition between the Crocker and
the Johnson crowd, supported by Ches-
ter Rowell, National Committeeman,
grew more intense.
, Well-informed Republican leaders IN
! the East do not charge that Johnson
D e. in ha "a NJ
/ paign. His speeches have been scruti-
nized and show that he campaigned up
and down the state for Hughes as well as
Johnson. But these same leaders hold
no brief for those under Johnson.
Whether Johnson tried to make them
/ play fair, too, is a question, but there
/ remains no doubt about the fact that
/ about 100000 Progressives in Califor-
MIA voted for Johnson and scratched
Hughes.
Other Scars
There are other scars, too. The
/ Colonel should have been sent to Cali
fornia TO patch up the Johnson Hughes
mess. The women's campaign train
would have done Hughes more good If
il had been sidetracked at Harmon,
n. Y. Hughes should have come out
earlier with his Amercanism policy. He
should not have begun his campaign so
early. Roosevelt was badly staged. The
campaign should have been managed on
a different basis. Too many things were
( neglected until the Democrats had the
advantage.
The middle is complicated still more
/ by glance at the returns. Who
thought Jim Watson would win so
easily in Indiana? When Hughes toured
Indiana a month ago Will Hayes, the
/ energetic state leader, was counting on
Hughes carrying the state by more
than $4,000 TO drag Watson through.
+ Watson led Hughes, and the latter's
plurality still dwindles.
And out of it all springs the question
Will T. r. run in 1920? Nobody can
4 charge that the Colonel did not do his
best to elect Hughes. His friends are
now in a position to bark back TO Chi
cago in June, 1916, when the Colonel
I was turned down for the ex-justice and
oajole themselves into the belief that
/ with him at the head of the ticket
/ Woodrow Wilson would have gone
( down TO defeat.
But 1920 probably will take care OF
/ itself.