EDITORIALS
Patronage or Principle THE FOLLOWING IS, in part, a statement given out by President Taft at Beverly, through Secretary Norton, after the primary elections in September: "While Republican...
...Hitchcock, through threats of patronage discrimination, open and implied, coerced a sufficient number of them to vote for Cannon to insure his election...
...Federal appointments have always been made upon the recommendations of Senators and Congressmen...
...So the "news" quickly traveled over the country that the Republican party in Wisconsin had deserted the progressive movement...
...A backward glance is necessary to interpret the full import of this confession...
...New York, Wisconsin and Minnesota are pointing the way to a better system...
...What better is there, than an equipment for industrial life...
...An elaborate organization of hired workers was formed, reaching out into every precinct in the state...
...Victory has been deferred— the war is going on...
...The President, seconded by Mr...
...This is an achievement...
...Sticking to the Peal Issue THE CAMPAIGN made by Senator La Follette was a campaign of education...
...The use of patronage as a reward for the support of administration policies or as a punishment for independent thinking and voting in legislation is a survival of the old discredited spoils system, which an enlightened public sentiment will not sustain...
...That support will be accorded upon conviction...
...Thus was Taft made an issue...
...It should be the duty of each one of us to support him...
...Progressive principles have a strong hold upon the people of Illinois, but there is little or no opportunity, as yet, to give full and free expression to them...
...They have fought for principle...
...bearing upon the national situation is so marked, that a brief account of it is given here...
...Progressive Republicans dared to amend it notwithstanding the patronage club over their heads...
...Ponder for a while on these propositions and on Primary Day, let your judgment thereon be made manifest...
...A meeting of Republicans from various parte of the state was held at Milwaukee early in June...
...But the corporation press and the national "regular" leaders sedulously spread the impression that this meeting was a party convention of the usual type, and representative of the Republican sentiment in the state...
...Perhaps more...
...NO MAN has a right to call himself a Republican (after the style of Abraham Lincoln) who is not an honest man and a patriot...
...Illinois Begins to Stir THE RESULT of the Illinois primaries is all that could be expected...
...A "Fake" Convention THE formal opening of the campaign was marked by coarse politics...
...And other states will go on...
...Money, organization, federal power and prestige, persistent and coarse misrepresentation—all these proved futile in the attempt to crush the progressive movement in Wisconsin...
...His record, known to every voter, made the campaign for him...
...And everywhere in the state volunteer workers came forward with their services to meet the activity of the hired workers of the tories...
...It was hoped to accomplish two things...
...The movement in this country toward justice in dealing with injured workingmen has advanced too far to be seriously affected by the inability of any committee to cope with the task assigned to it...
...Lincoln Waite...
...But whatever they may be, the fact remains that Illinois must wait —perhaps long—for thorough-going and progressive legislation covering employers' liability and compensation for industrial accidents...
...We should see that in this campaign we send to both bodies of our national legislature men who respect him for what he has done and who will support him further in keeping Republican pledges, and that we keep at home those who, to advance some selfish ambition, have been harassing him and attempting to block all legislation by opposing him and sometimes even cruelly cartooning him...
...Missoula, Mont...
...With the backbone of corruption broken, and with a better primary law, the people will have a chance...
...And appeals were made to individual prejudices...
...The President and Attorney General Wickersham presented to Congress a railroad bill satisfactory to Wall Street...
...Thus Cannon-ism was ferced upon the Sixty-first Congress by President Taft's official "persuasion...
...A patriot has more regard for the common people than for their plunderers...
...All these were unavailing against the intelligence, the training in self-government, and the civic decency of the people...
...but the President has concluded that it is his duty now to treat all Republican Congressmen and Senators alike, without any distinction...
...And now that they have won their fight for principle, the President offers them the patronage they rejected as the price of votes...
...When the issues are made up, as they will be in the next political campaign, more clearly than at any time since the War, it will be demonstrated that men's records, not their control of political appointments, will determine the results...
...An honest and patriotic man will neither buy nor sell a vote...
...As early as last February La Follettte's, well knowing the abuse of power which the President had been exercising for months, in an editorial entitled "Patronage and Party Solidarity," warned the administration of the folly of attempting to coerce the real progressives into the support of bad measures through official patronage...
...But an even deeper significance is given to the figures by the character of the campaign conducted against Senator La Follette...
...Senator La Follette was unable, through illness, to make a speaking campaign...
...It endorsed the tariff, the...
...This is particularly true in the case of Senator La Follette...
...A Campaign of Misrepresentation IN WISCONSIN the nature of this campaign is known...
...Taft Made an Issue TWO FEATURES of the campaign illustrate with particular clearness the extent to which President Taft was injected into the contest by the tory Republicans...
...Taft administration, ignored Senator La Follette, and exalted "party solidarity...
...The Progressives have not fought for patronage...
...With the official count from two counties still out, it is estimated that the total vote cast for La Follette will be in the neighborhood of 142,000, while his tory opponent, Samuel A. Cook, received only 40,000 votes...
...The first returns indicated that his total vote would be approximately one hundred thousand...
...The defeat of Congressman Boutell is a national gain...
...To the progressive Republicans is due the fact that the country is not now even more under the control of special interests than it actually is...
...We are not inclined to express in full our opinion of the shamelessnest, of the President's overtures to the Progressives...
...and, second, to nominate enough System candidates for the legislature to insure his defeat in that body...
...Party conventions were abandoned in Wisconsin with the passage of the primary election law in 1903...
...Every week in La Follette's appeared a live, meaty and vigorous campaign article written by the manager of the La Follette campaign, Charles H. Crownhart...
...In a letter sent out to the voters of the state, signed by W. D. Connor, the Chairman of the Taft campaign committee organized at the fake "convention," this paragraph occurs: "Notwithstanding the violent and sometimes cruel assaults upon him by those elected to uphold and support him, President Taft has succeeded to a remarkable degree in fulfilling the pledges of the platform upon which he was elected...
...Commenting upon that policy La Follette's said: "The support of the progressives for progressive legislation, will be given without reference to patronage or favors of any sort...
...Furthermore, the iron hold upon Illinois politics by the "bi-partisan gang" has been loosened, and may be entirely broken...
...Senator La Follette received 40,000 votes more than the sum total of the votes cast for his Republican opponent, for the two Democratic candidates, for the Socialist candidate and for the Prohibition candidate...
...And it was called "the Republican state convention...
...What Milwaukee is doing should be done everywhere...
...Then, the more brazen practice was followed of exacting pledges from legislative candidates that they would not vote for La Follette under any circumstances before giving them the backing of the "Taft-Republican" organization...
...Vice President Sherman took part in th'*n "telephone convention"—as it is called—and declared that he was "sent here" by President Taft "because that man is interested in Republicanism, in Republican success in the state of Wisconsin this year...
...Industrial education may, in fact, become the twentieth century substitute for free land...
...Everywhere it was conceded that La Follette would win at the primaries, but it was figured that if his majority were small, Special Interest legislators would find the excuse for repudiating the primary that this small majority was made up of Democratic votes and therefore did not represent the will of the Republican party...
...But so many requests from outside the state have come to La Follette's for information about it, and it...
...So the false issue of party loyalty was raised...
...It was a fake...
...All the tactics known to machine politicians were employed to cloud the real issue and confuse the voter...
...The opponents of La Follette, with presidential sanction, called themselves "Taft Republicans," and "Taft-Republican" clubs were formed all over the state to fight the progressive candidates...
...It was a campaign of misrepresentation...
...This meeting was arranged for, called, and managed by leaders of the tory element within the Republican party...
...The Illinois committee was given an opportunity to be of real and lasting service to the state, and incidentally to the whole nation...
...The present unjust and wasteful system cannot last...
...WHAT IS A REPUBLICAN...
...The time is near when our treatment of the unfortunate victims of industrial accidents—the toll taken in humanity by Manufacture—will cease to be a reproach to our civilization...
...They are supported by taxation just as are the common schools...
...Can such a man in justice demand that Republican Legislative candidates place themselves on record or pledge their support to him for the United States Senatorship...
...Now that the day of government land is practically over and men can no longer "go West," where the easy acquisition of virgin land established an equality of opportunity unknown at the present time, it is necessary to open other ways to economic independence...
...Both have in view equality of opportunity for all...
...That attitude, however, ended with the primary elections and nominating conventions which have now been held and in which the voters have had opportunity to declare themselves...
...Industrial education is intimately identified with the conservation movement...
...Endowing Our Boys and Girls IN MILWAUKEE the trade schools for boys and girls are a part of the city's public school system...
...First, to give Senator La Follette as small a majority as possible...
...The cry of "party solidarity" was raised...
...This impression was deepened throughout the country by President Taft's telegram of felicitation addressed to the "Wisconsin Republicans Assembled in convention...
...A thorough training of the youth for a life of service and usefulness may in the end prove vastly superior as an individual endowment, making for equality of opportunity, than the gift of a tract of land...
...When the Sixty-first Congress assembled, the Speaker of the House of Representatives was the most powerful person in legislation...
...Republican Senators and Representatives who believed this bill a violation of the promises of the party platform and who voted according to their convictions have been relentlessly pursued by President Taft from that time until the present...
...The nomination of three progressives for Congress, out of twenty-five, has broken the solid standpat delegation from Illinois...
...and it fell down...
...Partisanship was exalted...
...As a matter of fact, his majority will exceed that figure...
...The people of the city provide equipment and instruction whereby the youth of both sexes may secure training for industrial efficiency...
...Justice to Injured Workers THE failure of the Illinois committee on industrial insurance to draft a legislative program is not a matter of discouragement...
...The false issues raised by the "Taft-Republican" organization were passed over, and throughout the entire summer stress was laid upon the struggle now going on everywhere in the country between Public Welfare and Special Privilege, and the voters were asked "Shall Men or Money Rule in Wisconsin...
...This vote is significant as showing how deep-rooted are progressive ideas in the minds of the people of Wisconsin...
...Twenty-nine Republican congressmen were pledged to vote against Joseph G. Cannon for Speaker...
...Can a man who, as United States Senator, gave 13 per cent, of his support to the Republican party and 87 per cent, to the party's enemies, demand or expect support for high political office from REPUBLICANS...
...The strongest group of progressive leaders ever assembled in one state in any campaign came voluntarily to Wisconsin, paid their own expenses, and stumped the state for La Follette and for the progressive cause...
...Under this provision minor federal appointments have been made on recommendations of Congressmen from their respective districts...
...They have fought against the legislation that the President and his advisors have sought to force upon them...
...They have stood against the most powerful weapon usurpation can wield...
...The Constitution provides that the President "shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court and all other officers of the United States whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for and which shall be established by law...
...Otherwise, the President might Mexicanize the government...
...In the preliminary skirmishes in certain states like Wisconsin and Iowa, and elsewhere, he was willing, in the interest of what the leaders believed would lead to party success, to make certain discriminations...
...We do not know the inner reasons for this...
...The progressive press of the state kept the real issue standing out clearly in the midst of the dust and confusion thrown up by the opposition...
...This was manifestly a measure of protection to Congress against abuse of the appointing power by the Executive...
...The Issue in Wisconsin NOW THAT the official count of the votes in the Wisconsin primary election of September 6 is nearly finished, it appears that the victory of the progressives over the tories within the Republican party is even more decisive than was apparent from the early returns...
...By virtue of Cannonism the Payne-Aldrich Tariff bill was driven through the House...
...Patronage or Principle THE FOLLOWING IS, in part, a statement given out by President Taft at Beverly, through Secretary Norton, after the primary elections in September: "While Republican legislation pending in Congress was opposed by certain Republicans, the President felt it to be his duty to the party and to the country to withhold federal patronage from certain Senators and Congressmen who seemed to be in opposition to the Administration's efforts to carry out the promises of the party platform...
...And it is idle for the President to presume that he can secure adherence from the progressive ranks for any policies, or support for any legislation reactionary in its character...
...And a facsimile of the front page of La Follette's for March 12, 1910, on which appears a cartoon containing the figure of President Taft attempting to carry with him the Ballingers of the cabinet, the Aldriches of the Senate and the Cannons of the House, was also sent to the voters, with the following appeal: "Can a man who published the above cartoon justly demand or expect support for office from Wisconsin Republicans who retain a sense of decency and a spirit of loyalty to the party and of fair play to the party's leaders...
...Money was spent lavishly...
Vol. 2 • September 1910 • No. 38
