Ashland weekly tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1919-1924, 1920-07-21

pie stand it? Have they submit
ted to so much bulldozing at tn,
hands of the politicians and par
ties, that they have last theil
sense of ownership of their owl
government?
There is no question whatever
about the widespread public dis
gust. the question is, How will II
emerge? Will it die down into
apathy, or will it flame forth into
the protest of a Citizens Move
ment with a Citizens candidate?
1t is very doubtful that any par
ty today has the definite cohesion
of other years. We hear everlast-
ing talk about "the party" from
both democrats and republicans
But where is it? II appears that
the party" consists of the men
who meet in national convention,
ana no one else. These parties
do what they please and then go
out and bid for the suffrages OF
the American people.
There is no reason whatever
why the choice of the American
people should be limited to Cox
or Harding, to the spineless re-
publican platform or the dead
democratic platform. The Amer
lean people are too big, their
problems too pressing, to permit
them to stand on either platform.
Third parties have fallen into
disreput because their sole pur-
pose heretofore has been to boost
somebody into office; when they
failed to do that they were cast
aside. Theodore Roosevelt led
out of the republican party the
best blood in it, the young men
of the party whose ideals had not
been bemirched and whose 10y
atty to their country had not been
weakened by party shackles. But
when they proved to be numeri-
cally too weak to elect him, al
hough they were morally so strong
as to throw a creative shock into
the conscience and will of the ma
ton, he left them and went back.
Silce thai failure, which was the
failure CT an individual and not
movement, third parties have
been regarded with doubts.
But a movement of the AMER
lean people, in rebuke of both the
subservient democratic and repub-
lican parties, would not be the
usual third party"-it would be
the nation seizing again its own
control out of unworthy hands.
The old parties have no divine
right. What a party convention
does, need not be received Loyalty,
as If 1t were an act of govern
ment. The people now know
all of. the people know-that the
last two national conventions
were deliberate caucuses, secret
in their real work, for the pur-
pose of putting over" on the
people something that the people
do not want, and against which
they will be in rebellion before
another four years.
Whether the people will take SUI
pinely what is given them, or ex-
ercise their free power to name
their own candidate and make
their own platform; whether they
will require that their nose be
rubbed still deeper in the con-
tempt which the politicians have
for them, or will make an end of
the present race of politicians at
once, is for the immediate future
to reveal.
VIII there be a cleanup at
Washington under Cox or under
Harding? Certainly there will be
no custer of the secret rulers of
the United States under a repub-
lican or democratic regime.
If the people want cleanup,
they must act at once, they must
act deliberately, they must act
without reference to he prece.
dents set by the dicredited par
ties, and they must act with a
confidence in their supreme con
trol over all their affairs.