Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1916-06-09
"PuSSyfOOtinE"


y EPUBLlCANS at Chicago have SHE'D at
N the issue of CONSUMPTION. After their
most militant leaders had shouted it from
the housetops i'll preconvention speeches and
made it the text of their demand for pre-
Iaredness, they substitute in their platform
Il milk-and-water argument for a sufficient
and effective regular army and provision
for ample reserves
The Progressive platform pussyfoots in the
same deplorabc way. Ii declares for
regular army Of 100000, but CONSUMPTION is
forgotten. Instead the Bull Moose decla-
ration of principles urges, as second
line OF defense, "a system Of military
training, adequate to organize with prompt
ness citizen soldiery supplied, armed and
controlled by the national government 1t
is the old continental army once again! 1t
is the duty of the people to defend the nation,
says this valiant outpouring OF the Progress
sive spirit. and therefore I'VE should give to
every citizen opportunity for sufficient train
ing at Federal expense TO perform this duty
effectively"
Opportunity" mark you, not compulsion
Shades Of Julius Caesar, Alexander. Napoleon
and Charlemagne, The Colonel is out of it
already. for no who has imbibed the
Prussian spirit as thoroughly as has he could
stand for such clubbing with the eternal
i'russian veritics Looking al the whole per-
Torrance dispassionately, it does not appear
lntt tnc Progressive nOOQ was more heroic
than the Republican. Leaving out the
preference for a continental army over the
existing National Guard, either plank might
have been written by James Hay, of Virginia.
that special adherence of Republican and
near Republican shouters.
The Progressves had better he careful If
this sort OF fooIishness is the best their plat
form makers can do, the Colonel may decline
their nomination as we'll as the one the Old
@ hav fbev
will not let him have. How a perfectly
good hero consent even To walk into Office
over any such compound Of tissue paper and
molasscs candy?
Speaking seriously. however the imitation
CONSUMPTION planks exactly what we haa
expected. Whatever may he aid of some of
The Progressives the astute leaders of the
Republicans in too close touch with
public sentiment TO load their declaration
with the advocacy of military CONSUMPTION.
They know full Well that such plank would
pronounce the doom OF the party that sub
ribed ~,
Colonel Roosevelt if he accepts the Pro-
gresaivc nomination and continues in the ra ce.
probably will make platform Of his own
as he goes along. suting his announcements
to his audiences. The Colonel, he it known,
is something OF weasel himself. In his
lexicon the "malefactors OF great wealth"
were always contrasted with powerful in
terests so favorable to my policies" and good
trusts with bad trusts He knows as we'll
as anybody in the political game how 10 use
words that suck the meaning out of those
that preccde and those that follow. So far
IS CONSUMPTION is concerned however the
platform makers have left him little 10 do
ii Yuan Hung possibly feels that as long as
he doesn't have himself called TO be Emperor,
the poison bund will permit him to retain
his presidency and his health.