The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-26


 for even an outside chance of election. For that matter, imagine the calm CT second thoughts of the German American.
 It begins to look, as if the extraor- dinary bitterness of the Colonel's diatribes against MT. Wilson is not caused by anything MT. Wilson has done or failed to do: as if, like a spoiled child, the Colonel is jealous of MT. Wilson's place in our hearts. It begins to look as though the reason for Colonel Roosevelt's amazing sup port" of MT. Hughes is because he grudges MT. Hughes his place at the head of the ticket. The Colonel really wanted that Republican nomination, you know. What was it MT. Elihu Root said of him? "The spear that knows no brother ?"-eXactly. I wonder what MT. Taft thinks. l know what he does. He chuckles.
 ShueksI I almost forgot! MT. Hughes was for Hiram Johnson all the time. This became plain after the event. (Woman suffrage papers please copy,) And yesterdays paper Sunday, Sept. 3-says in the head lines: Hughes Comes Out Against the
 Hyphen."
 Maybe he did; l read the speech and I can't remember that he did say any thing one way or the other about the hyphen. or about anything else. Think ing I had been inattentive, l read it carefully the second time. But 1 can not remember anything he said-not one word. Can you? Yet l remember distinctly what Colonel Roosevelt said at Lewiston and what MT. WilsonNsald at Shadow Lawn: I can give an Nn- coached, creditable paraphrase-Can you?
 Does MT. Hughes mean anything? If he does mean anything, why in the name of the Jehovah and the Conti- mental Congress dosent the man say what he means?A
 The newspapers are not fair to MT. Hughes, anyway. They give the full text of Colonel Roosevelts speech, with only a hasty and probably gar bled summing up of the Hughes speeches. wonder why?
 How will it all come out? Well, here is a test proposed editorially by the Toledo Blade:
  services of the state of Texas. That state has had the fullest experience with 'watchful waiting of any in the union.
 Now if the state of Texas will come forward and endorse the Mexican pol icy the nation will know what per- feet thing that policy is. When its statesmen shall take the stump in 1oir rae ideal and the citizens of Texas petition for it's continuance, then Hr. Hughes criticism will become as sounding brass, or tinkling cymbal
 Here is a. grand little Opportunity for putting the kibosh on the Re- publicansA Surely the Democrats will not be so blind as to decline to use it.
 Texas has answered. In the Sena- torial primary turning altogether upon the test proposed by the Toledo Blade, Colquitt, attacked the Wilson policy in Mexico, was overwhelmingly beaten by Culberson,g advocating a continu- ance of that policy. And, as the Blade sagely observes, the Texans are on the ground They don't depend upon hearsay. They know. < The Pessimist has lived on the Mex ican border, with the Texans and the Mexicans, for 25 years. He knows no one more fierce and forward in the matter of protecting American lives and property from Mexican outrages than the Texans. But the Texans know, they cannot choose but know, what seems never to have entered MT. Hughes mind even as la suspicion that when we have protected Ameri- can lives-and property in Mexico, our duties in Mexico are not ended, but merely begun; that the nearest duty of the United States today is to help distressed and bewildered people Not to shoot them-to help them.
 Speaking of Maine and Texas, let's trot the Grand Old Dope. MT. Wilson received five and half million votes in 1911; MT. Taft got three million, and Colonel Roosevelt got four mill lion. As Neighbor Bill and I figure it, if out out of every four Progressives was sincere about going forward, the election will be mighty close; for F plus equal$ 6k, and 3 plus (4-D equals 6; with the Silent Vote to de- eide. But if two out of every Pro- gressives vote in November the way their representatives have been voting in Congress-then MT. Wilson will be elected, since 5k plus equals 71A, and plus 2 equals 5.
 These are not the figures of the op- position. The figures of the opposi- ton go something like this: The ir- reducible minimum of three million Republicans, plus Colonel plus four million eX-Pro- gressives, plus MT. William Randolph Hearst, plus three million German Americans, total, in round numbers, ten million and two; Socialist, one million; Prohibitionist, one million; thus leaving the Democratic candi- dates the support of MT Wilson and his fuglemen-whatever fuglemap is plus Mr. Bryan, plus MT. Marshall (MI. Marshall, it may be remembered, is running for vice president)-plus MT. Mathew Hale,. plus Neighbor Bill, and Me. Maybe they are right, never was good at figures.
 We feel that we have other duties besides prophecy, or voting, or even arguing-Neighbor Bill and T. We are going to cut out the literature of hate,< for one thing. We are not go- ing to read-or write-any books, stories or articles in which every Ger man, or Mexican, or Japanese, is in evitably and always the viIest kind of a villainous villain. We are not go- ing to buy the magazines. books or papers that give us that kind of junk, we are not going to the shows that contrive to get themselves called patri- 61y< oofn