The Bismarck tribune. [volume] (Bismarck, N.D.) 1916-current, 1924-05-27
DEMOCRATS
ONE HOPE, THE
PR0GRlESSIVES
And the Pr0gressives One
Hope Seems TO be the q
Democrats
BY HARRY b. HUNT
NEA Service Writer

washington, May 2I.-'Ihc one
hope for Democrats this year is to be
Progressives.
"And the one hope for Progress
gives is to be Democrats"
Thus Carl VrOoman, Progressive
Democrat economist, dirt farmer
and former assistant secretary Of
agriculture, sums up the political
prospects for this year Of all ele-
ments outside the Republican party.
Vrooman, who has Just completed
a tour of middle west agricultural
states, is now on swing, through
the south preaching his doctrine of
Democratic Progressive coalition,
which he declares is the only meth
cd by which either Democrats or
progressives can hope for success
this year.
There are between six and eight
million farmers and their wives who
will follow any reasonable hope for
IN administration that will pull ngri-
culture out of its present difficult
ties" Vrooman says.
Neither the performances, poll
cies nor promises of the Republican
party satisfy them. They listened
to Republican promises and voted
for Republican policies four years
ago, and their troubles have grown
worse, not better.
Unless the Democratic party
adopts platform definitely present
ing a program designed to assist ag-
riculture to its feet again, and nom
mate. an aggressive Progressive in
whom the farmer and his wife have
faith, then these millions of voters
will follow La Toilette into any indie
pendent or third party movement he
may organize.
This result, certain to follow the
selection Of any reactionary or con-
Democrat, would of course
mean defeat this year Of all Fro
gressive prospects 1t might give a !
Progressive balance Of power in the !
next Congress, of course, and might |
even throw the election Of president |
and vice president into Congress.
THE final result of this last sit !
uation no one can foresee. 1t would |
create situation with the gravest |
opportunities for corruption, graft !
and the Illustration of the public's
DESIRES"
The danger to the fight of Pro-
gressives in the Democratic party,
for the nomination of Progressive .
candidate and the adoption of FRO
eressive platform, according to Vroo-
man, lies in the influence of Z power
full bipartisan group which seeks
to force its type of candidate and
platform on both parties and then
can sit back complacently and let
Denis and Republicans fight it out,
secure in the knowledge that no mat
ter which side loses it wins. |
"This group" Vrooman says,
which has its representatives. in
the Democratic ranks as we'll as in
the Republican, thinks in terms of .
interests, not of parties. And the /
interests of this bipartisan combine
are not the interests of the great
mass of American men and women.
Vrooman, incidentally, may break
into the limelight at the New York
if the seeds of the doc
trine he is now sowing in the south,
and which he already has planted in
he midwest. sprout before June "a
He is convicing speaker, widely ira
veled and informed, with the knack
Of knowing just how to put his pro-
positions to catch popular under
He is dirt farmer, actively man
aging 1900 acres Of corr. and wheat
land in Illinois and Iowa AS he
says:
81 know what the farmer is up
against. When he loses money, l
lose money"
He is writer of note on econo-
mic subjects, graduate Of Har-
ward and Oxford. Some have whis-
pered his name as dark horse for
vice presidential candidate.