NEWS WORTH REMEMBERING
News Worth Remembering WILSON AND MARSHALL— that is the ticket of the Democratic party for 1912. After a long drawn out contest of forty-six ballots, Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey was...
...And he added, "His title to the nomination is tainted and questioned by the great mass of the party...
...favors a single presidential term...
...The Platform The platform adopted at the Democratic Convention is on the whole more progressive in its declarations than the platform adopted by the Penrose-Crane-Root controlled Republican Convention at Chicago...
...favors conservation of the natural resources and the control of Mississippi River...
...I shall not hesitate to oppose measures brought forward by its leaders when I think they are wrong, nor to differ with the President when he proposes legislation which I believe to be unsound or unwise...
...legislation which shall promote prosperity and at the same time secure the better and more equitable diffusion of prosperity...
...He said: "Before I left Chicago and again at Oyster Bay * * * I stated that the third party movement and my candidacy would not be in any way affected by the outcome at Baltimore...
...I shall not join the new party, but shall continue to use all the strength I have to influence and direct the course of the Republican party toward its true mission...
...Ignoring the consequences to his own personal prestige and throwing to the winds what chances might have existed for his own possible nomination, he forced the issue in such a way that special privilege was compelled to unmask...
...Surrounded by a small group Bryan made his way to the stage to deliver his valedictory...
...Never in his whole political career has he done a more unselfish and heroic act than that of offering himself as a candidate for temporary chairman at the Democratic Convention...
...The story of this fight between the delegates led by William Jennings Bryan on the one hand and those controlled by the Murphy-Belmont-Ryan group on the other was reported in these columns last week...
...It is not because the vice-presidency is lower in importance than the presidency that I decline...
...opposes the Aldrich scheme for the establishment of a central bank...
...Who believe in the right and capacity of the people to rule themselves, and effectively to control all the agencies of their government and who hold that only through social and industrial justice, thus secured, can honest property find permanent protection...
...That vote showed that a large majority of the delegates in the Democratic Convention, as a large majority of the delegates in the Republican Convention proved to be, were owned and controlled by the plutocratic powers...
...Stampede to Wilson The break came on Tuesday, July 2, on the forty-third ballot, when Illinois, under the unit rule, cast its 58 votes for Woodrow Wilson...
...Who believe that wholesome party government can come only if there is wholesome party management in a spirit of service to the whole country, and who hold that the commandment delivered at Sinai, 'Thou shalt not steal,' applies to politics as well as to business...
...and includes planks favoring merchant marine untainted by subsidies...
...Great applause...
...Marshall for Vice President The selection of a candidate for Vice-President was speedily made...
...Great applause and cheering...
...Speaking upon this resolution, Senator Works declared that he believed President Taft to have been nominated "by unjust and illegal means...
...legislation which shall promote the economic well-being of the honest farmer, wage-worker, professional man, and business man alike, but which shall, at the same time, strike in efficient fashion— and not pretend to strike—at the roots of privilege in the world of industry no less than in the world of politics...
...William Jennings Bryan seconded the nominations of Governor Burke of North Dakota and Senator Chamberlain of Oregon, but the convention after two futile ballots, nominated unanimously Governor Thomas R. Marshall of Indiana.' Bryan's Splendid Leadership By his splendid leadership, his indomitable courage, his devotion to principle, William Jennings Bryan forced the Democratic convention to name a progressive candidate for President...
...Governor Chase S. Osborn of Michigan, who was one of the seven governors to make the call upon Roosevelt, deserted Roosevelt and declared he would support Woodrow Wilson for President...
...It was a spectacular contest—a contest between the progressives and the reactionaries in the convention...
...But the uproar increased, and finally Bryan climbed upon his chair...
...After the Convention we disagreed with Mr...
...The platform, however, lacks the definiteness and constructive character of the platform submitted to the Republican Convention by the delegates from Wisconsin and North Dakota...
...advocates additional legislation to strengthen the Sherman Antitrust law...
...Bryan in only one essential particular...
...Bryan, being a fighter who fights to the last ditch, did not stop with this first engagement...
...endorses the income tax amendment and direct elections of United States Senators...
...Bryan, sitting quiet in his seat in the Nebraska section, was immediately surrounded by a group of supporters urging him to speak...
...Great applause...
...legislation which shall favor honest business and yet control the great agencies of modern business so as to insure their being used in the interest of the whole people...
...Senator John D. Works of California, a progressive Republican, introduced in the Senate a resolution calling upon the Senate to appoint a committee to investigate the money spent by President Taft, Colonel Roosevelt and other candidates in the presidential preference primary...
...When the roll was called on this forty-sixth ballot, Wilson had 990 votes, Clark 84 ond Harmon 12...
...I would not have a single delegation stay with him for a single roll call under any sense of obligation to him...
...Its cause, according to engineer Schroeder, was his failure because of fog to see signals set against his train...
...A roar swept the hall as the name was mentioned...
...Who believe that only through the movement proposed can we obtain in the nation and the several states the legislation demanded by the modern industrial evolution...
...In declining the nomination, he seconded the nomination of Governor Burke of North Dakota and Senator Chamberlain of Oregon, and said, in part: "To-night I come with joy to surrender into the hands of the one chosen by this convention a standard which I carried in three campaigns, and I challenge my enemies to declare that it has ever been lowered in the face of the enemy...
...The record of that Convention's vote clearly proved the contrary...
...shouted the delegates...
...Bryan's leadership in the convention: "But few Americans to-day, who are not prisoners of prejudice, doubt the sincerity and the high purpose of William Jennings Bryan...
...He was a soldier under the Progressive flag...
...Bryan's conflict with his party and his conduct as a statesman and a patriot was admirable...
...repeats its declaration of 1908 against the use of injunctions in labor disputes...
...After hurried conferences between Clark leaders who hoped the Underwood delegates thus released might be swung to Clark's support, Senator Stone of Mis-sour, a Clark leader, went to the platform and said: "Speaking for Speaker Clark, I will release—if release be necessary—any delegation instructed for him...
...For a time he refused, sitting unmoved in the midst of the storm of disorder...
...As the progressive candidate for temporary chairman of that Convention he went down before Judge Alton B. Parker, notorious as the tool and instrument of special privilege...
...Whereupon Mayor Fitzgerald of Boston rose to announce that the Massachusetts delegation was ready to swing its vote from Governor Foss to Wilson...
...After a long drawn out contest of forty-six ballots, Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey was finally named as the standard bearer of Democracy for the forthcoming campaign...
...Great applause and cheering...
...It is significant that the name most frequently mentioned in connection with this Democratic Convention of 1912 is that of William Jennings Bryan...
...Who believe that government by the few tends to become, and has in fact become, government by the sordid influences that control the few...
...He now maintains that the Democratic Convention was a progressive body of delegates...
...My services are at the command of the party, and I feel a relief now that the burden of leadership is transferred to other shoulders...
...There is no office in this Nation so low that I would not take it if I could serve my country by accepting it...
...Bryan for thus forcing the issue upon the attention of the people...
...Take the platform...
...favors presidential primaries...
...Bryan proved then and there that plutocracy controlled the Democratic party as at Chicago it was demonstrated it controlled the Republican party...
...The contest was over...
...This was a war and not a single battle and he proposed to fight it out until he had delivered his party to the people...
...Throughout the whole Convention Mr...
...the development of agriculture...
...It declares for tariff for revenue only...
...I believe that I can render more service to my country when I have not the embarrassment of a nomination and have not the suspicion of a selfish interests—more service than I could as a candidate—and your candidates will not be more active in this campaign than I shall be...
...Roosevelt Issues Call for New Party Colonel Roosevelt announced that the nomination of Governor Wilson would in no wise deter him from his attempt to form a third party to forward his candidacy for the presidency...
...The end appeared when at the beginning of the forty-sixth ballot Senator Bank-head of Alabama, manager for the Underwood forces, took the platform and announced: "Mr...
...I need not tell this Convention or the friends of Speaker Champ Clark that he will stand by the nominee of this Convention loyally to the end...
...Slowly but steadily, Wilson gained on each succeeding ballot...
...Following is the text of this call: "To the people of the United States, without regard to past differences, who, through repeated betrayals, realize that to-day the power of the crooked political bosses and of the privileged classes behind them is so strong in the two old party organizations that no helpful movement in the real interests of our country can come out of either...
...Cummins and Works Against New Party Senator Albert B. Cummins of Iowa announced through the public press that he would not follow Colonel Roosevelt in his movement to build a third party around his candidacy...
...I believe," said Senator Cummins, "that we can solve the problems before us more quickly and more successfully through the Republican party than through any other political organization...
...I never go into a fight on a contingent basis...
...Even among those who in former years have been his consistent opponents there are many who now unhesitatingly commend him and enthusiastically endorse him for his courage of conviction and for his patriotism which rose above party loyalty...
...advocates efficient regulation of railroads, express companies and other public utilities...
...Who believe that only this type of wise industrial evolution will avert industrial revolution...
...civil service reform in the administration of justice...
...All I ask is that, having given us a platform the most progressive that any party of any size has ever adopted in this Nation, and having given us a candidate who I believe will appeal-not only to the Democratic vote, but to some three or four millions of Republicans who have been alienated by the policies of their party, there is only one thing left, and that is to give a Vice-president with our President who is also progressive, so that there will be no joint debate between our candidates...
...On July 8 Colonel Roosevelt, through his manager, Senator Dixon of Montana, issued a call to the people of the United States who are in sympathy with what is termed "the national progressive movement" to send delegates to a national convention to open in Chicago on August 5, 1912...
...The wreck is said to be the worst in the history of the road...
...And he declared that he was not willing to participate in the kind of a third party movement proposed by Roosevelt...
...Another terribsle railroad wreck, in which 41 persons were killed and more than 50 injured, happened on July 4 in a rear end collision on the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad at Gibson, New York...
...Take the platform...
...This call is signed by forty, including a few widely known men like Gifford Pinchot, Judge Ben B. Lind-sey, Governor Hiram W. Johnson of California, Governor R. T. Vessey of South Dakota, Governor G. L. Taylor of Tennessee, Governor Joseph M. Carey of Wyoming and Senator Miles Poindexter of Washington...
...The withdrawal of Underwood's name aroused anger in the Clark camp...
...Everywhere in the country recognition has been given to Mr...
...The Wisconsin State Journal, a militant progressive Republican newspaper that has refused to support either President Taft or Colonel Roosevelt, had the following to say about Mr...
...Underwood entered this contest hoping he might secure the nomination from this Convention, but I desire to say for him that his first and greatest hope is that through this' contest we might eliminate for all time every vestige of sectional prejudices in this Convention...
...The same belief that led me to prefer another for the presidency rather than to be a candidate myself, leads me to prefer another rather than to be a candidate myself...
...parcels post or postal express...
...and free passage through the Panama Canal by American vessels engaged in coastwise trade...
...Bryan's "Valedictory" One of the most dramatic episodes that has ever happened in national politics occurred when a delegate rose after the nomination of Wilson and proposed William Jennings Bryan as Vice-Presidential candidate...
...He crowned a long career of fidelity and service to the public interest by this latest and greatest service to the cause of progress...
...By doing so he aroused the bitter enmity of the Clark forces and William Randolph Hearst, both of whom, while announcing their support to the nominee of the Convention, directed violent invective at the great Commoner...
...Who believe that the time has come for a national progressive movement— a nation-wide movement—on nonsectional lines, so that the people may be served in sincerity and truth by an organization unfettered by obligation to conflicting interests...
Vol. 4 • July 1912 • No. 28
