EDITORIALS
Saving the G. O. P. THE CANNON-ALDRICH organization is making desperate use of all the power and influence at its command to shape the party platforms and dictate the personnel of party tickets in...
...The System arranges a fake "convention" in Wisconsin, engineered in Washington and financed in Wall Street...
...Saving the G. O. P. THE CANNON-ALDRICH organization is making desperate use of all the power and influence at its command to shape the party platforms and dictate the personnel of party tickets in the present campaign...
...Or are they staggering blindly to a fall...
...And scoffing at the existence of this people's movement is a senseless performance, unless perhaps you do it for the same reason that the small boy whistles as he passes a graveyard...
...I see no reason why the Insurgents should not win...
...The friends of the conservation movement are in better position to continue the fight than seemed possible when the session of Congress began...
...Here it is: "Keep right on in your good work...
...There are students of this question who point out that the land withdrawal act may after all prove an open sesame to the Morganheims, and their allies, to these public treasuries...
...The three remaining conservation bills proposed by the administration, which were of relatively small importance, were passed in a form different from that in which they were introduced, and one of them in greatly improved form...
...The people want popular government...
...The Special Interests are fighting it...
...But it still remains to be seen whether or not the efforts of the Insurgents, against the combined opposition of the regular organization and the administration, were sufficient to safeguard the people's resources from exploitation by the Interests...
...Garfield says, that something of public good was forced into the conservation legislation by the progressive element in Congress...
...They know what kind of a railroad bill Wickersham prepared and what happened to its worst features...
...In case any Interests have located claims upon water power sites withdrawn by Roosevelt, it is quite possible that the government may not be able, even in the courts, to disprove their claims...
...James R. Garfield presented the views of the Association as to this bill before the Senate Committee on Public Lands, which accepted his suggestions...
...Allies THE System press is outraged at what it calls the "unholy alliance" betvreen the Progressive Republicans and the Progressive Democrats in Congress...
...When you are sent out on a scouting expedition f&r the powers-that-be to ascertain the state of insurgency in the Union, get elose to the people...
...It sends Speaker Cannon out to stump the state of Kansas...
...The truth is, the System is fighting to save itself...
...In this connection, we quote from an interview given to the press on June 27 by former Secretary of the Interior, James R. Garfield...
...Mr...
...As president of the National Conservation Association, Mr...
...They come from the rank and file of the party—from that great army ci citizens who never come in contact with those in high official position...
...THE campaign of newspaper misrepresentation undertaken by the System press to make it appear that the administration's "popular legislation program" was saved at the eleventh hour of the last session only by the strenuous efforts of the public-spirited "regulars," may mislead some folks...
...The timber sale bill in particular was wholly indefensible...
...And they know, too, on which side of these great questions their representatives have stood...
...Will the people who compose the party—and they number millions— permit the machine to grind out endorsements of the very things against which they are protesting...
...It is true, as Mr...
...not among the professional politicians, to whose own interest it is to bear false witness...
...They know about the Aldrich tariff law and how it was made...
...But how about that alliance between the Cannon Republicans and the Tammany Democrats...
...But will such tactics ''save the Republican party...
...The men who are writing the platforms in the state Republican conventions—in those states that have not yet shaken themselves free from the old boss-controlled convention plan of nomination—are for the kind of delegated government that makes it possible for the System to control the people's "delegates...
...That is, this is the open and ostensible purpose...
...Special Privilege is for it...
...I am entirely disgusted if not offended at our treatment at the hands of the the leaders of our G. O. P. and will vote with them no longer...
...The only way to "save" the Republican party is to make it responsive" to the public will...
...These letters do not come from the kind of Republicans who surrounded Vice President Sherman, when he was in the Middle West, and inspired him to report back East that he saw "no signs of insurgency...
...At present, control of the Republican party organisation means control of the government, hence it is that the henchmen of the System in national and state politics are resorting to all the methods of old-line politics to keep that party in power...
...Let the Republican platforms express true Republicanism...
...These were introduced by Representative Gronna, of North Dakota, and are before Congress for consideration at its next session...
...Subsequent modifications changed the bill for the worse, and, in particular, opened lands withdrawn for water power and other purposes to private appropriation under certain of the mineral land laws...
...We opine that those engaged in this campaign of misrepresentation will have pretty rough sledding...
...The System is surely driven to an absurd straddle...
...In Nebraska it pursues the same course, except for a concession to the vigorous progressiveness of the people of that state in the form of an endorsement of the insurgents in Congress...
...The people are in favor of conservation—the kind that Pinchot champions...
...Party platforms should be made to express the temper of the people...
...Endorsing standpattism and insurgency in the same breath...
...Wicker-sham, is something you cannot afford to ignore...
...Note that...
...If they had not made the fight against the original administration bill great injury to conservation would have resulted and the public domain would have been opened to the land grabber...
...Here, Mr...
...It is time the people begin tu rule...
...For five of these bills substitutes embodying conservation principles were prepared by the Association, covering all important phases of the conservation program of the Administration...
...I am for Poindexter of this state for Senator, and will vote for no man who favors Cannon or Cnnnonism...
...A few days ago we received such a letter from a man in Washington...
...Balunger and Mr...
...Will it "Go...
...The substitute for the withdrawal bill suggested by the Association was enacted into law with amendments as described below...
...Pinchot has issued a bulletin summarizing the legislation considered and disposed of at the last session...
...I am with you heart and soul...
...In the Ohio convention it turns down the insurgent candidate for governor and praises the Pavne-Aldrich tariff law...
...The cause of self-government, of government for all of us rather than by a few Special Interests, has undoubtedly been advanced during this session, and the Insurgents, both in House and Senate, are the ones to whom all the credit belongs...
...To what end1...
...It is there that you will find "signs" of insurgency...
...The people are against the tariff law...
...We print part of it, not because it is different in spirit from the others, but because it states so concisely and forcibly what the well-informed Republican voter is thinking...
...Cannon and Aldkich and the "men higher up" are not...
...More than one avenue to monopolistic grabbing of the people's property has been closed but much still remains to be done...
...They know how Wall Street was taken care of in the postal savings law...
...Do the men who control the Republican national organization understand this...
...and are represented in many bills still awaiting action...
...These bills * * * were mostly bad...
...With regard to the land withdrawal act passed by Congress, Mr...
...He said: "The good in the bill (the withdrawal bill) was put in by the real friends of conservation inside and outside of 'Congress...
...But the people are too well-informed about the work of the last two sessions of Congress to be led far astray...
...But the bill as finally enacted goes far beyond the recommendations of the administration...
...Pinchot points out, much work still to be done to protect the rights of the public in its lands...
...Conservation and the Insurgents GIFFORD PINCHOT says there is "substantial cause for satisfaction in the progress achieved during the session of Congress just closed," along the line of conservation...
...They understand these things well...
...The people are progressive...
...Pinchot reviews the situation generally as follows: "Early in the recent session Senator Nelson introduced nine conservation bills drafted in the Interior Department...
...They know the loopholes that were left in the conservation laws for the Morganheims...
...There is indeed, as Mr...
...And that alliance between the Aldrich Republicans and the Big Business Democrats...
...To "save the Republican party...
...Otherwise the people may repudiate both the platforms and the party managers at the polls...
...Pinchot says: "The Hon...
...Where to find Insurgency ALMOST every mail brings to us, from all parts of the country, letters from Republicans who protest against the control of the government by the money power...
...Sherman and Mr...
...He says: "In spite of all opposition, the principle* for which we stand have been enacted into law in a considerable numWr of cases...
Vol. 2 • August 1910 • No. 31
