The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-09-02

party. We have driven the tariff lob- | by from cover and obliged it to sub- stitute solid argument for private in- fuence.
 This extraordinary recital must sound like a platform, a list of san-
 guine promises; but it is not. It is a
 record of promises made four years ago and now actually redeemed in
 constructive legislation.
 These things must profoundly dis turb the thoughts and confound the plans of those who have made them selves believe that the Democratic
 party neither understood nor was
 ready to assist the business of the
 country in the great enterprises which 1t is evident and inevitable destiny to undertake and carry through. The
 breaking up of the lobby must espe-
 cially disconcert them: for it was through the lobby that they sought
 and were sure they had found the heart of things. The game of privi other means. This record must equally astonish
 those who feared that the Democratic party had not opened it's heart to con-
 prehend the demands of social justice. w e nave III lOuT years come very near to carrying out the platform of the
 Progressive party as we'll as our own; for we also are progressives.
 There is one circumstance connect
 ed with this program which ought to
 be very plainly stated. It was resisted
 at every step by the interests which the Republican party had catered 1o and fostered at the expense of the md ;,,%o
 now earnestly praying for a reaction
 which will save their privileges for
 the restoration of their sworn friends to power before it is too late to re- cover what they have lost They i fought with particular desperation and infinite reSourcefulness the reform of
 the banking and currency system, knowing that to be the citadel of their
 control; and most anxiously are they hoping and planning for the amend ment of the Federal Reserve Act by the concentration of control in a sim
 gle bank which the old familiar group of bankers can keep under their eye and direction. But while the big men who used to write the tariffs and com
 mand the assistance of the Trea sury
 have been hostile,-all but a few with vision,-the average business man knows that he has been delivered. and that the fear that was once every dav in his heart, that the men who con- trolled credit and directed enterprise from the committee rooms of Congress
 would crush him, is there no more and will not return.-unless the party that consulted only the big men | should return to power,-the party of ! masterly inactivity and cunning re-
 sourcefulness in standing pat. to resist change.
 "The Republican party is just the party that cannot meet the new con- ditions of a new age It does not
 know the way and it does not wish
 new conditions. It tried to break
 away from the old leaders and could
 not. They still select it's candidates and dictate its policy, still resist
 change, still banker after the old con-
 ditions. still know no methods of en-
 couraging business but the old meth
 ods. When it changes it's leaders and
 Its purposes and brings it's ideas up to
 cate i. will have the right 10 ask inc
 American people to give it bower again: but not until then. A new aee
 an age of revolutionary change. needs l new purposes and new ideas
 'Tn foreign affairs we have heer
 guided by principles clearly conceiv. ed and consistently lived up to. Per. haps they have not been fully com.
 prehended because they have hitherto governed international affairs only in
 theory. not in practice. They are simple, obvious, easily stated and
 fundamental to American ideals We have been neutral not c,11 | because it was the fixed and tradi. | tional policy of the United States tc stand aloof from the politics of Flu rope and because we had had no mar, either of action or of policy in the | influences which brought on the pres ent war, but also because it was man | ifestly our duty to prevent. if it were | possible, the indefinite extension ot | the fires of hate and desolatior
 kindled by that terrible conflict and seek to serve mankind by reservint our strength anad our resources for | the anxious and difficult days of re- | storation and healing which must fol- l low, when peace will have to build