UPHOLD THE INSURGENTS
Lindsey, Judge Ben B.
Uphold the Insurgents! Progressives in Both Parties Must Unite to Fight the Common Enemy—Privilege By JUDGE BEN B. LINDSEY ICONSIDER it the highest duty of a progressive Democrat to lend any...
...To follow such a false trail is not only the height of folly, but it is the height of treason...
...The only reason, at this stage of the contest, that the Democratic party in the National Congress seems less contaminated with the influence of organized wealth is that it has not been the dominant party there, and privilege not only does not need to prove its strength in that organization, but the success of its plans demands that unless necessary it should not attempt to show its hand...
...In the first place, a progressive Democrat has no business opposing an insurgent Republican who is marked for slaughter by those interests whose unjust aggressions he dared to oppose...
...Witness President Cleveland's denunciation of the betrayal of the people, by the Democratic party, in the last tariff bill it was entrusted to draw...
...Therefore, the first duty of the hour is to uphold the insurgents, regardless of party name or label, until one of the old TESTED BY FIRE "The real struggle is not between the trvo old parties, as now constituted...
...The truth will compel more serious attention to the fact that men like the insurgent Republicans are the real men ef the hour, and being the most serviceable deserve most the trust and undivided support of all the people who stand against pillage...
...And our experience here in the West and Northwest compels us to admit that that organization so far is the Republican party when dominated by the real insurgents...
...It is between the people and privilege...
...it kmm"= no party, but knows how to use and control both...
...Under present conditions progressive Democrats and insurgent Republicans can meet on the same ground and fight shoulder to shoulder against the common enemy...
...and that contest is really between these contending forces within each of the old parties...
...for to oppose the aggressions of criminal wealth within one's own party, when it is the dominant party, in a crisis like the present, is an entirely different tiling from a similar opposition in a minority party...
...False leaders of a party should be displaced and real leaders substituted...
...If the real insurgents should control the Republican party, it would unquestionably present the very best medium for the enactment of those measures which the people demand, and which, in the present stage of the evolution of our government, they are prepared to receive and profit by...
...We have all seen the truth of this in the same struggle in states and cities...
...and it is infamous...
...And when it ceases to be so dominated in the West, it is not only doomed to defeat but, in my judgment, to extinction and upon its remains will arise a new party that will really respond to the aspirations, hopes and purposes of the insurgents in both parties...
...There the struggle Will go on until one or the other is free...
...It is between the People and Privilege...
...In this struggle, Privilege is hi-pariisan...
...The most important duty of the hour is to tell the truth about both party organizations and freely confess that the Republican organization at Washington has made as big a mess of the Payne-Aldrich tariff as the Democrats did of the Wilson-Gorman tariff...
...In most such cases the success at the polls guarantees nothing but jobs for party henchmen and the same old husks for the people...
...We know, if it were, the same fight would be within its own ranks that has been in many of the States and cities where the Democratic organization controls, and only through insurgency in such instances have the people had any chance in the struggle...
...Witness the Democratic Tammany Halls in the various cities of the nation, like New York and Denver, delivering our public franchises to privilege grabbers...
...And our experiences in Colorado are not uncommon...
...Where Insurgents Control—Join Them NO, I believe that in the new political alignments gting on in this country the young men of the nation, especially, should line up with that organization—whatever its label—that promises most for the people and least for privilege in the immediate future...
...They shouH rebuke those who would thus become tne conscious or unconscious tools of pillage within their own party...
...Here in the West and Northwest, the progressive Democrats are compelled to admit that strong Republican states like Kansas, Wisconsin, Iowa and Oregon have so overcome the opposition of privilege within their ranks as to give us more honest and constructive legislation than the Democratic party has so far given us in a state like Colorado, where it has been in complete control, and from which organization, because of its present domination by privilege grafters, we have been unable to get any of the progressive measures that came in these western and northwestern states through the Republican organization...
...To accomplish more than a protest, that in some cases is wise, it is foolish to rush from one of the old parties to the other in such a struggle as is now going on, and expect to really get anywhere...
...Do partisan politicians longer doubt that the people have not discovered that organized wealth, that has used both political parties in cur state, is doing the same thing in the nation...
...The Democratic organization, nationally, has not been...
...and that contest is really between these contending forces within each of the old parties...
...The one requires real courage and a real test...
...In this struggle privilege is bi-partisan...
...I believe they should go over to that party where in the shortest time they will find the best chance for their shots to hit and their blows to count...
...And so those men, known as insurgents in the Republican Congress, who have been through the furnace test against Can-nonism and Aldrichism, are the only men who have really qualified to represent the people in their struggle against privilege...
...to add idiocy to falsehood, by claiming that human nature has changed fcy changing from the present Republican organization to the present Democratic organization...
...And when the test comes within the Democratic organizations, in cities and states, with results like that, what assurance have the people that a similar result may not be expected in the nation, where the Democratic organisation, in high sounding platitudes and general denunciations of privilege, makes precisely the same promises to the people that in these city and state Democratic organizations have thus been so wilfully violated and where the people have been by them so brazenly betrayed...
...For after all the real party is not the name but the idea—the spirit of protest against pillage...
...To do so would be to claim that the Democratic party was free from the corrupting alliance between privilege and politics, when we all know it is equally responsive to such influences...
...Each Democrat not only has a right, but is in duty bound, to consider his experience in every State, as well as in the national Congress, where there has been a real test in his party between the privilege grabbers and the champions of the people's rights...
...In Colorado, our city and state Democratic organization is and has been as brazenly and willingly a tool and instrument of privilege as the Republican organization ever was...
...To deny these truths is simply to attempt to deceive the people...
...Politicians only make themselves ridiculous when they oppose the righteous judgment of the plain people...
...The special interests do not need the Democratic party in the national Congress until it becomes the dominant party...
...Down With the False Leaders AS long as the reign of privilege is maintained, men will be tempted—regardless of party—and our chief gain now is to hold fast to those men known as insurgents, or progressives, in either party, who have withstood the tempter and rebelled against their party organization by fighting it from within when it shamefully yielded...
...With us at one time it masked as Republican 'till discovered, when it promptly found Democratic habiliments just as purchasable, and in that attire it was again boosted into office, on the strength of its own bad record while disguised as Republican...
...There is no such thing...
...They can do it best by voting so as to insure the triumph of the insurgent Republican, thereby standing best by their party, whatever its name...
...while such opposition merely from the minority party, whose services are not yet needed by privilege, requires nothing of the kind...
...it knows no party, but knows how to use and control both...
...And until it is, the high sounding platitudes of its platform and the loud protests of some of its leaders, may be the same old mockery it has proved to be in many city and state experiences,—the bluff of party demagogues in the very detestable occupation of making party capital out of the difficulties of real patriots...
...and when Democratic help was needed to aid privilege in the national Congress, big business proved what it could do...
...If either of these parties is to be restored to its normal functions of enabli the people to express themselves in the affairs of government, they must be released from the strangle hold of privilege...
...Of course when the only alternative for protest is to jump from one party to another the effect may be helpful, but even then it is questionable unless the real truth be known and the real remedy is finally applied...
...We can no longer speak of the Democratic and Republican parties that our fathers knew...
...Charles S. Thomas, has been insurgent and brave enough to denounce the shameful betrayal by Jie Democratic party of the people of Colorado to privilege grabbers as infamous...
...They have been separated from the corrupting slag in which the Democratic party is still imbedded...
...And where Democratic politicians, for mere party gain seek the defeat of an insurgent Republican, the Democratic voters should rise above the appeal to partisanship and respond to the appeal to patriotism...
...The Duty of Progressive Democrats ICONSIDER it the duty of a progressive Democrat to support an insurgent Republican who is already in Congress, and has stood against Cannonism and Aldrichism, even if that insurgent is opposed by a progressive Democrat who stands for precisely the same thing...
...In the recent past, when it was the dominant party, framing a tariff, it was equally submissive to the demands of privilege...
...We are on the eve of the fiercest struggle since the Civil War —the new struggle between hitman rights and property rights, privilege and the people—and in such a struggle it is a part of the conspiracy of confusion by the special interests to use the slogan of party advantage against the man who rings true...
...They deserve encouragement from real Democrats no less than from real Republicans...
...But the cunning of the interests will not disguise it because Aldrich or Hale refused to run again rather than be consumed in the blaze of insurgency sweeping over them...
...And speaking for my own state, where that conflict has raged in a Democratic legislature and city councils in recent years, where the issue was as clear locally as it has been nationally, and where the Democrats were in complete control, we found the same conditions, necessitating insurgency within that party, that we found within the Republican party, with the difference that perhaps the insurgent Democrats were even more powerless against privilege than the insurgent Republicans...
...We see the reactionaries beating a retreat—skillfully planned...
...Progressives in Both Parties Must Unite to Fight the Common Enemy—Privilege By JUDGE BEN B. LINDSEY ICONSIDER it the highest duty of a progressive Democrat to lend any strength he may have to the re-election of insurgent Republicans like Beveridge, La Follette and Dolli-ver...
...When the truth is told concerning the influence of the special interests in both of the great parties, the absurdity of a mere rush from one to the other of the old political parties as a solution of our difficulties becomes apparent...
...Intelligent and patriotic citizens will therefore vote for the man rather than the parly...
...The real struggle is not between the two old parties, as now constituted...
...And, just as in the past, I have rejoiced to hope for victory for Hughes in New York, and have been proud to vote for Roosevelt in Colorado, so in the present great struggle I shall account it the duty of a real progressive, of a real insurgent, whether Democrat or Republican, in states like Indiana, to work and vote for Beveridge, and in states like Wisconsin to work and vote for La Follette, and in states like Kansas to work and vote for Bristow and Stubbs...
...It explains why the insurgents are the most hated and feared by the special interests, and their defeat, by whatever means or person—even though he be an untried Democrat professing the same principles—is with them the "consummation most devoutly to be wished" for...
...And so those men, known as insurgents in the Republican Congress, who have been through the furnace test against Can-nonism and Aldrichism, are the only men who have really qualified to represent the people in their struggle against privilege.'' parties is free from the domination of privileged wealth, or until that result is proved impossible—when it will be time enough to consider the necessity for a new party...
...It is to be hoped that no such calamity may befall us—for it would be a calamity in the present crisis...
...Intelligent and patriotic citizens will therefore vote for the man rather than for the party, no matter ivhat the politicians say...
...Are we to repeat the same folly nationally—to merely mark time—instead of advancing one step forward in the fight against privilege...
...Our Democratic former Governor, Hon...
...It shows so far, the only real signs of progress...
...But if the Insurgents control the Republican party, or present a fair prospect of doing so, I shall as cheerfully and as conscientiously be an insurgent Republican as I have tried, to be a Democrat, but never so foolish nor so partisan but that when a real test comes, in a crisis like the present, I cannot conscientiously and consistently support a man rather than a party...
...We should fight that way, and, in the face of threatening privilege, corrupting government, it is too serious a time to permit trifling differences to keep us apart...
...There the struggle will go on until one or the other is free...
...No man doubts that the sympathies, feelings, hopes, aspirations and purposes of the great mass of voters in both parties are absolutely right and for the right, and they will drive false leaders from place and power when the opportunity comes—as it will come...
...Special Privilege is Bi-Partisan IN THIS struggle within each party only the Republican organization nationally has been on trial...
...To one who understands the cunning, the confusing and corrupting influences of the hour, it seems nothing short of selfish, indecent, immoral and dishonest to take a mere sordid, partisan advantage of the insurgents...
Vol. 2 • July 1910 • No. 29
