New-York tribune., 1922-11-22
Hard Work Making a New Party

GASA VI VVC1h AVA6shblS IL l%GW Z &Gky
Senator Norris, of Nebraska, is the
! first of our new builders of third
parties to face the sheer physical
difficulties of the case. He wishes
to start by changing the Federal
election laws so as to permit Presi-
Dental election by direct popular
vote. His impulse is wise from his
point of view.
Gentlemen with ideas for third
party are numerous and at present
rather vocative. Gentlemen with an
understanding of the legal and prac-
tical barriers may be as numerous,
but they are certainly maintaining
greater reticence. Possibly it is
somewhat scornful reticence. We
will wager at least that this element
OF scorn enters into the attitude of
those who went through the Bull
Moose schism of 1912. They have
learned by bitter experience.
Those who went out with Roose-
Welt to establish "a new party" must
recall the technicalities and the par
ticularities which so stubbornly
blocked their efforts in most of the
Northern states. The South was
simply abandoned by the Progress
sives, save for Louisiana and North
Carolina, but any real third party
would have to assume the dead
weight Of organizing on the other
side of the Mason and Dixon line.
And what does such organizing
mean in North, East and West as
well as Southf 1t means, first, SO
apparently simple thing as nam
ing Presidential electors. In some
states where the new party revolt is
hot this is easy. But to persuade
suitably prominent men in every one
Of forty-eight states to come out
openly for third party and let
their names appear as it's electors
is a job requiring the most surpris-
ing expenditures of money, effort
and. above all, time.
When this has been done the or
ganfzers are at once confronted with
the practical political fact that no
party can get anywhere If it simply
heads fts ticket and fails to COM
plete it by naming also n Congres-
sional ticket, state ticket, county
ticket, city, village or township
ticket and In some states q Marty
officer ticket. The Prorressives
found in 1912 that even the extraor-
dinary idolatry given Theodore
Roosevelt ran pretty thin when it
| came to persuading his enthusiastic
revolters to run on the unrou q nt;c
and uninteresting tickets of local
government.
Yet let us assume that D now
party shall have done all this in the
year of grace 1924. It's technical
troubles have but begun. II then
viii have to get the names of it's
candidates upon the ballots. And
here all the barriers of tradition
all the weight Of inertia, all tbe
uriderfow Of legislation stand in tho
way. Many state laws make II
frankly impossible for new nartv
to get its name or nominees on the
ballet before it shall have cast
certain proportionate vote. MANY
other states, by technicalities, take
practically the same stand. America
stands ty its two-party system in
making it legally difficult for a new
party to be born.
Finally, when all these difficulties
shall have been surmounted. II ba-
comes necessary for the crusaders
to organize the internal political
committees of their party There
must be national committee. fortv-
eight state committees, some aooo
county committees and very con-
siderable number of special city
committees. The mere job of or
ganizing the county committees Is
enough to dismay the stoutest heart
and the longest purse. Yet IL Is in
tne efieacy Of these local committees
that old-line politicians make their
test OF the reality Of any party.
new or old.
The idealistic enthusiasm for a
new party is one thing; the will and |
sne ability to do the hard-slogging