WHERE A VOTE REALLY COUNTS
Where a Vote Really Counts ONE of the reasons we haven't had real representative government in this country is that voters have had but limited opportunity to voice their will at the polls. Year...
...Tucker received 5,276 more votes than his nearest opponent, Levi H. Bancroft...
...Bancroft is technically the nominee...
...Bancroft, in a public speech at Janes-ville, repudiated the principles and purposes of the Republican party of Wisconsin, and reviled its leader as the 'Mad Mullah of Wisconsin' and offended against decency by saying, 'An order was issued to vote for the ghost of a dead thief which language he repeated in an interview published Oct...
...Crownhart's name on the ballot as the . regular nominee, Justices Siebecker, Ker-win and Timlin dissenting therefrom...
...Few states are so fortunate...
...That is why every candidate on the state ticket of the Republican party is a real progressive...
...The rest of the story is told in the resolutions recently adopted by the Re-publican State Central Committee, as follows : "On Sept...
...It is now a state where a vote really counts toward popular government...
...Since the adoption of the Republican state platform and during the pendency of the injunctional proceeding Mr...
...15, 1910, the supreme court, by a divided court, enjoined placing Mr...
...Crownhart's name on the ballot as the Republican nominee...
...It was the bosses, not the people, who named the candidates...
...Where a Vote Will Count THUS the situation in Wisconsin is complicated "with respect to one office...
...But to make the victory for the people complete on November 8, every voter must remember to scratch his ticket in voting for the attorney general...
...And when a great body of free and unsubdued citizens began voting for real popular gov-enment instead of for mere party advantage, there came direct nominations and direct legislation...
...Bancroft telephoned a message to this committee in which he said: 'No man, a candidate on the Republican ticket in this campaign, can stand more squarely on the platform adopted by the Republican party than I can...
...People Supreme in Wisconsin NOWHERE is this so well exemplified as in Wisconsin...
...They chose the only way left them to give expression to their will...
...Through the loophole of a court decision, one lone tory found his way on to the Republican ticket...
...There was but one way out: to vote for an independent candidate whose Republicanism is of the progressive kind...
...Three days before the primary, messages were sent out from the headquarters of the progressive Republicans to all parts of the state advising the voters that in order to secure a progressive nominee for attorney general, the name of Mr...
...at Mr...
...27, 1910, the Republican state platform convention unanimously recommended Charles H. Crownhart for the vacancy created by Mr...
...Frank T. Tucker, the progressive Republican who was running for the nomination for attorney general, died...
...But as the people came to realize that Privilege is bi-partisan, they saw that the issue was not so much between parties as it was between Public Interest and Special Interest, So there developed the "independent" vote...
...That is why the dominant party, the Republican party, has on its banner, "The will of the people shall be the law of the land...
...On October 3, 1910, the Republican state central committee formally nominated Charles H. Crownhart Republican candidate for the office of attorney general...
...So strong is progressive sentiment in Wisconsin that the people refused to cast their votes for a tory Republican...
...Tucker's death...
...During the pendency of this action Mr...
...22, 1910, there was filed in the office of the secretary of state petitions signed by more than 2,500 Republican voters asking that the name of Charles H. Crownhart be placed upon the official ballot as an independent candidate for the office of attorney general...
...therefore, "Resolved, That Charles H. Crownhart be indorsed as an independent Republican candidate for the office of attorney general and that all voters be urged to actively support his election at the polls...
...Bancroft should be called upon as attorney general to defend these and other laws from attack...
...with a man who has i never wavered from the side of the peo pie...
...in both the "great" parties...
...His attitude on the anti-pass, primary, binder twine, the corrupt practices act and other la we, we believe, endangers the safety of progressive legislation if Mr...
...Year after year, they have been forced to choose their representatives from a list of men put up by the bosses...
...He will indeed be politically supreme...
...Thereafter, on the evening of Oct...
...Through an accident, and a subsequent technicality, it is made difficult for the voters to elect a man to the attorney general's office who is in full accord with their convictions...
...Thereafter Levi H. Bancroft brought action against the secretary of state to enjoin placing Mr...
...They nominate their own candidates...
...Bancroft's record has made him personally and politically objectionable to the great mass of voters, irrespective of factions or parties...
...Bancroft publicly repudiated Senator Robert M. La Follette and the Progressive policies enunciated in the state platform and has placed himself outside the Republican party of this state...
...And later when the platform was drafted, it was made to express just what the people are thinking, politically, because it was written by men who had received their nominations directly from the voters...
...Progressives throughout the state urged Mr...
...Crownhart as the only Republican for whom the progressive people of Wisconsin could vote without doing violence to their own political convictions...
...14, 1910...
...Crownhart, the independent candidate, the Wisconsin voter will give full and emphatic expression to his own will...
...With one exception...
...And in response to this demand, the state central committee gave its official endorsement to Mr...
...Crownhart to run as an independent...
...Why Progressives Must Scratch the Ballots IT happened this way...
...That exception is in the case of the attorney general...
...Gradually, government is passing from the control of bosses into the hand...
...Charles H. Crownhart is an able lawyer whose loyalty to Progressive principles and reform legislation is beyond question...
...These petitions were signed spontaneously and as an expression of the desire of the Progressive Republicans of Wisconsin to be given an opportunity to vote for a recognized Progressive to fill this important office...
...It is the progressive party, the people's party...
...In that state the people are supreme in government...
...17, 1910, Mr...
...The people themselves made it so...
...By voting for them and by voting also for Mr...
...So well did they do the job that the Wisconsin primary became a watchword throughout the nation...
...They have unseated the bosses...
...As a result, the voter will go to the polls next Tuesday knowing that his vote will count for something...
...therefore the Republican state central committee, keeping in mind its duty to the party, cannot support his candidacy...
...My affiliations with the so-called stalwart Republican party was not of any, choice of mine, but it was because the party of my choice divorced themselves from me...
...I am perfectly willing to sign any statement that the committee may prepare, setting forth my views and my action in this matter.' "Thereafter,namely on October 24,1930...
...In order to retain present laws, secured after many years of active effort, it is important that the office of attorney general should be filled by a lawyer who, when called upon to do so, will strongly defend such legislation...
...of the people...
...Mr...
...Bancroft's request, he personally appeared before the Republican state committee and substantially reiterated in the foregoing statement, and added further that his only object in participating in the Milwaukee convention held in June, 1910, was to prevent another 'Eleventh floor fiasco.' "The Republican party of Wisconsin is confronted by the fact that although repudiated by a plurality of votes at the primary, Mr...
...For every other state office he will find on the Republican ticket men who are tested progressives...
...and that was to vote for the name of Tucker...
...I have always been a Progressive and shall always be a Progressive...
...Petitions were signed by voters in sufficient number to place his name on the ballot...
...That is why, in Wisconsin, the voters do not have to turn helplessly from one party to another, as their only means of protesting against misrule...
...Responding to the demands received from all over the state, this committee is required to squarely meet and accept the responsibility placed upon it...
...On Oct...
...After careful investigation we are satisfied no nominee for attorney general of any of the parties is in sympathy with the Progressive movement to which the Republican party of Wisconsin is committed...
...I am perfectly willing to take the stump and speak for every plank in the platform, as they express my sentiments and views...
...Tucker should be marked on the ballots, and that the state central committee would afterwards select a progressive candidate to fill the vacancy, according to law...
...On Oct...
...After the primary election ballots had been printed, and only a few days before the primaries...
...Tucker, although dead, was nominated...
...Now there are many states where voters may go to the polls on election day and vote for men who really represent their political views...
...It was too late for another progressive to enter the field...
...No matter how the election went, the System had no cause for alarm...
...The people of Wisconsin, therefore, may fill every state office with a Progressive Republican...
...For every office, almost without exception, he will find a candidate on the ballot who stands for exactly the things he himself stands for...
...Now he is free to give expression to his will through his vote...
...After years of endeavor and steady progress toward popular rule, they are now in complete control of party machinery...
...At the primary on September 6 they turned down the candidates of the bosses and nominated their own candidates, from top to bottom of the ticket...
...In Wisconsin, the dominant party is the Republican party...
...And the fact that a man is running for this office on the Republican ticket who is not a progressive is an accident unique in politics...
Vol. 2 • November 1910 • No. 44
