Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1916-07-18
Editorial Comment
Moose Who Will Not Give Up the
Fight.
Boston Herald)

(BOStOn HeratQ)
Jerseys Moose Holly Refuse to
Indorse Hughes" So reads the New
York World in a conspicuous headline
yesterday, of which the Herald had an
approximate counterpart.
John NJ. Parker of Louisiana, Of
newly-won vice-presidential honors,
insists that the party which accords
them, shall not give up the ghost He
purposes to call convention in Chi
cago on Aug. 5, even if he has to have
1t himself, and there to hurl defiance
at all the reactionaries in the world,
including Roosevelt himself.
Our own Matthew Hale is sputtering.
In every state in the Union may be
found people who derived such supreme
enjoyment from their taste of promin-
ence through the new party that they
refuse absolutely to give it up
Whether they can accomplish any
thing by further activity or not APP
pears to them wholly aside the point
When Lee surrendered at Appomat-
tox and the news reached a dashing
young cavalry officer, named Went
|
ment knew no bounds. Surrender
would he the most foolish thing mag
Unable. The war had only began. He
had only freshly become an officer, The
secessionists We're winning If they only
knew it, as they all did, except poor old
laundering Lee, Of whom Young Harris
could afterward speak only with con-
tempt
The youthful officer accordingly took
| his horse and started over the noun
tains join a band Of Confederates in
Texas, of whom he had heard. They
purposed to fight to the bitter end. ONLY
complete breakdown of his emaciated
animal, and the surrender Of the ir-
reconcilables before Harris could reach
them. prevented the contamination of
his felicitous plan.
The Progressive party is going
| through an experience not unlike the
truthful. one just related Its Harrises
are making a lot Of noise. They can
do this in civil politics with greater
safety than in organized rebellion. and
so their din is likely to last longer.
But the principle is the same. The real
generals in the confederacy knew when
to surrender. Its newly adorned off,
GERS shrieked over the prospective loss
Of their plumage.
| Pity poor John M. Parker with q
vice presidential nomination slipping
through his hands, which neither of
the old parties stood ready to give him.
His state will remain hopelessly Dem
| ocratic. That its opposition should be
Progressive, instead Of Republican, or
divided between Republican and Pro-
gressive, would be immaterial to him.
But not the loss Of his plumase.
The fact, as everybody knows it. Is
that the Progressive party has been
surrendering for some time. Its en-
thusiasts inquire about it's four million
votes polled in 1912. How many of
them lasted into 1913? How ma.,y into
1914? How many went into Progress
I've primaries last spring? What
would have been the party vote this
year had they insisted on maintaining
| separate organization?
These questions answer themselves.
With Roosevelt and deputies gone, the
party has no following and no strength.
That the remnant still in hostility
"hotE refuse to support Hughes" is Of
the smallest earthly consequence. They
hold the same relation to the presiden-
tial battle that Wentworth Harris and
his spawned horse did to the illustrious
army of northern Virginia.