The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-05-23
COLONEL TAXES
 REAL FLING AT {. JUSTICE HUGHES
Challenge on Preparedness Is Issued From SagamOre
 Hill.


 Roosevelt yesterday issued what IS re- garded by his supporters as an open challenge to Justice Hughes to define his position on the issues of the forth coming campaign. The Colonel frankly accepted the support of the Committee of Regular Republicans, organized last Sunday to I promote his candidacy at the Repuo- 1ican National Convention Then, out lining his views Anerican1Sm ana preparedness, he said:
 l Any man at this time of crisis who is not aggressiVely, openly and spe- officially for these principles is against them; and every patriotic man should treat our public servants on this ba- sis.''
 White Waits Declaration.
 It is regarded more than as a coin lcidence that while he was issuing the challenge at Sagmore Hill, William Allen White, the noted Kansas Pro gressive, was declaring in the West that the Progressive party will not consider Justice Hughes unless he makes a. Square toed" declaration on the issues in advance of the Chicago .l convention.
 1 George von L. Meyer secretary of the navy under President Taft, was 1.-the spokesman of the committee Reading from a carefully prepared statement, Colonel Roosevelt answered him follows:/
 l dIu naturally very O06p1y IOuCI0o and pleased by your action I accept it absolutely in the spirit which you have taken it. You are for me be- lcaues you regard me as representing and embodying the aggressive move ment for thorough-going Americanism and thorough-going preparedness Your devotion is to the cause, and to the man so far as he for the time be- ing embodies the cause. This is pre-f cisely the attitude I took in my Trin- ,l dad statement.
 i 'EI now hold and shall continue to hold this a great time of crisis in country's history, because it is a great crisis in the history of the world. If we are unprepared, if we are split and sundered by riva1ries of creed, of section and national origin; if our couhtry.s action is to be condi- toned by he1p1essness without, and the hyphenate within, the career of the United States as a, great factor in the. worlds civilization is at an end.
 Against Half Measures
 There is no use of being for half measures of fAnericanisn and pre- 1 paredness. Still less is it of any use for any public man to announce him self in vague terms as in favor of Americanism and preparedness unless his whole course of action in public l life has made it evident, and now 1 makes it evident, that he means just | exactly what he says. Unless, if he is in office, or has been in office, his | career has been such as in fullest | measure to warrant the belief that he is a man of deeds and not of words in this matter. and unless, in every 1 crisis, whether he be in or out of of flee, he frankly and fully takes a po- fsition on the concrete facts which are Eup for decision, and applies the ab- stract statement directly to these con- crete facts.
 General professions are utterly worthless unless, in the first place, 1 the man making them is ready to inn i-mediately apply them to every con crete case as it actually arises, and unless, in the second place, he has | the opportunity, he at once turns his words into deeds
 "I am fighting for these principles. They are the principles you are or ganizing to support, and with all my heart welcome such support, ac- cepting it as given primarily, to the principles and seNondarily for my l se1f.''
 l Taft Men Give Support. l Of the former Taft men who were 1 present and assured the colonel of their support, there were two whose | words affected him deeply. One of | these was Professor Hiram Bingham, 1 a member of the Yale faculty, and a | close personal Ir1enQ or NIT. IaIG. In0 | other was William c. Ra1ston, son of a former governor of California, and | sub-ttreaSurer of the United States at San Francisco in the Taft adnainistra,- ton. He said:
 Colonel Roosevelt. four years ago I was so heartily with Taft that when his name was taken off the official ballot in California, I voted for Will | son rather than vote for you.''
 Fine. lovely cried Roosevelt. l But I am glad to see you here to- day.
 said Ralston. Twenty-Five members of the com n1ittee were included in the party to- day.
 They were William R. Nicholson, president Land and Title Trust Co.,, l of Philadelphia; ex-State Senator J. .Ndayhew Wainright; George von L. Meyer, formerly Secretary of the Navy; R. c. Morris, vice president of ] the Union League club and former chairman of the New York County Republican committee; Court1and | Nickon, ex-alderman and Republican state committeeman; Captain Arthur l Cosby, formerly member of Roose- l velt's Rough Riders; Josiah New 1 comb. former state senator; Clinton w. | Gilbert, associate editor of the New l York Tribune; George B. Agnew, ex- I SIo1IO COAAe~A' w. N>. ASo1ASIOAA, 4OA tAAOA l United States sub-treasurer at San | Francisco, Cal; John H. IseIin; Pro lessor Hiram Bingham, Yale professor, alternate to Republican National Con- l vention; Arthur Moore, Ogden Reid, editor of the Tribune, New York; lGouverneur Morris, the author; Hen | ry ReuterdahI, naval artist and critic; 1 William A. Lord, delegate to Repub- ncan National Convention from New Jersey; Charles s. Devoy, former coun- | ty Clerk of Brooklyn; Nathaniel Els berg, former New York State Senator; Alexander M. White. former treasurer New York State Republican Commit | tee; Eugene Maxwell Moore, Chauncey 1 J. Hamlin, Maunsell Van Renssalaer,