THE TRUTH ABOUT THE CONTESTS
Roe, Gilbert E.
The Truth About the Contests 1. Roosevelt Makes His Issue — "Thou Shalt Not Steal" By GILBERT E. ROE THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION met in Chicago on June 18 last, and adjourned late on the...
...17 Hughes...
...The difference between 466 and 540 is 74...
...Upon that proposition the new party is founded and must be accepted or rejected by the voters...
...Applause...
...In a statement deliberately written and signed by Mr...
...A person may be a free trader, or an extreme protectionist...
...Ernest P. Bicknell, director of the American Red Cross, describes the situation in detail in The Survey, which is the accredited spokesman for the organization...
...41 Cummins...
...On June 22, what was called a Committee, was organized in Chicago to issue a call for the new party and such call was issued in New Yark under date of July 8. This call lays down no test of principle or policy as a condition of membership in the new party, but is addressed to "All 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...
...The final vote in the Convention for president taken Saturday afternoon, June 22, was as follows: Taft...
...but under the actual conditions I hope that he will not vote at all...
...There is no more authority for placing any of the 41 La Follette votes or the 10 Cummins votes from Iowa in the Roosevelt column, than there is for placing them in the Taft column, So far as the 2 Hughes, and the 6 absentees, and the 7 Idahc votes are concerned, it is at best only a surmise that they might at some time have been cast for Roosevelt, had there been no nomination on the first ballot...
...The National Committee of course, made up the temporary roll of the Convention, that is to say, the delegates whom the National Committee found to be the regularly elected delegates were given a place on the temporary roll, and this carried with it the right to vote in matters concerning the temporary organization, except of course that it did not give any delegate whose seat was contested, a right to vote on his own contest...
...2 Absent...
...Under the direction and with the encouragement of Mr...
...Roosevelt made immediately upon his arrival at the Convention at Chicago, as reported in the Chicago Tribune, a pro-Roosevelt paper, he said: "My friends: (Applause) Chicago is a bad place for men to try to steal in...
...I now proceed to analyze the testimony produced before the National Committee upon that proposition...
...They have left their homes and their farm animals and their stored-up supplies of grain and hay, together with their farming implements and equipment...
...Lacking the elements of surprise, sudden horror, or tragic death, the greatest and most destructive flood which has ever occurred in the Mississippi Valley is commanding little attention from press or public...
...Woodruff, who thus frankly admits that all his political life he has been identified with the Republican machine in the State of New York (which is popularly supposed at least to be the worst political machine in existence), must be added the Hannas of Ohio, the Flynns of Pennsylvania, the Forts of New Jersey, and so on through the list, not forgetting Perkins, Munsey and others of the financiers...
...From this flooded district have been driven more than 175,000 inhabitants...
...107 Not Voting...
...The progressives in that Convention who were supporting Senator La Follette labored early and late in the preparation of such a platform and called to their assistance the best minds of the country, and perfected and presented to the Convention a complete, definite, progressive platform...
...So also it must be admitted that the form of procedure of the National Committee and the Credentials Committee at the last National Convention was strictly according to the rules and practice of the Republican party...
...Between Cairo and New Orleans the area of land submerged is greater than the combined areas of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island...
...The Truth About the Contests 1. Roosevelt Makes His Issue — "Thou Shalt Not Steal" By GILBERT E. ROE THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION met in Chicago on June 18 last, and adjourned late on the evening of June 22 following...
...In this matter the Roosevelt and Taft forces in the Convention worked in entire harmony and by this combination made it impossible to put the various delegates on record as favoring or opposing the progressive principles for which a majority of the members of the Republican party stand...
...also that the 2 who voted for Hughes and the 7 from Idaho who voted for Cummins might have voted for Roosevelt...
...IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for any one to begin to learn what he thinks that he already knows.—Epictetus...
...I mention this fact at this point because, in connection with the matters above mentioned, it shows that the movement for the third party, is not based upon honest differences in principle among Republicans...
...The result of their labor was submitted to the Roosevelt delegates a considerable time before the platform was presented to the Convention...
...In the present case, however, the penalty which it is proposed to visit upon the alleged dishonest acts of a few men which it is claimed prevented Colonel Roosevelt's nomination, is the destruction of the Republican party, and the call to the rank and file of the party is to avenge themselves for Roosevelt's defeat by destroying the party, not to rebuke the Taft faction of the party for its non-progressive and stand-pat policies...
...The loser in such factional contest is expected to be "game," and the winner generous, and each hopeful that in the next convention he will be on top of the steam roller and not under it...
...The evidence at hand abundantly establishes the correctness of this statement...
...Public interest subsided while the waters were yet rising...
...The Republican National Committee met in Chicago on June 7, preceding the Convention for the purpose of hearing contests, and was almost continuously in session from that time until the Convention met, hearing and deciding contests...
...Therefore I hope the men elected as Roosevelt delegates will now decline to vote on any matter before the Convention...
...Applause) * * * This is a contest between the people themselves and the professional politicians representing all that is worst in the corruption of business, and the people will win...
...To men like Mr...
...Roosevelt, and published in The Sun of June 23, 1912, he said: "A clear majority of the delegates honestly elected to this convention were chosen by the people to nominate ME...
...THERE WERE in the Convention, 1078 delegates...
...The thwarted ambition of an individual and not disagreement with the political principles of the dominant faction of the Republican party, brought forth and is directing the entire third party movement...
...This statement which is issued in pamphlet form, is stamped on the back "printed by Roosevelt Committee" and in it Mr...
...he may believe in the prosecution of all trusts and combinations which violate the law or may favor the protection of the Steel and Harvester Trusts, and the other "good trusts" when they violate the law...
...but is based entirely upon the proposition that delegates were stolen by the National Committee from one candidate and given to another...
...Principles are Ignored THE MOST IMPORTANT WORK which could have been done in the Chicago Convention was the adoption of a progressive platform in harmony with the will of the mass of voters of the country, and if this could not be accomplished, then, by a roll call, to put the delegates present on record and thus legitimately have laid the foundation for a division in the Republican party based on fundamental principles, if such division proved to be necessary...
...Let me state right here, that I would have severed my relations with any political machine if it had resorted to any such methods as were employed at Chicago by the Republican national machine, to steal from Colonel Roosevelt the presidential nomination which he had fairly and squarely won...
...he may be in favor of the Aldrich currency scheme or against it...
...This would add 15 more votes to the possible Roosevelt strength, making a total of 466 votes as the maximum which he could have received under any circumstances...
...I personally went to the South Dakota delegation and saw the Wisconsin delegates go to other delegations upon the floor begging for the necessary state to join with Wisconsin and North Dakota in order to get a roll call and in every instance such requests were met by a flat refusal...
...Bicknell points out that to keep tens of thousands of people well in camps and to restore them to their homes and to self-support is a task measuring up in many aspects to the Red Cross work at San Francisco...
...Some members of the National Committee who most loudly condemn "stealing" delegates in 1912, participated in the same sort of transaction as members of the National Committee in 1904...
...Mr...
...It is not pretended that these men have been converted or ever will be converted to progressive principles or policies...
...What Was Roosevelt's Strength...
...In fact no matter what his political creed, if he is willing to go on record in opposition to what Colonel Roosevelt calls the theft of his delegates in Chicago, such person is eligible to membership in the new party...
...Whether one agrees with the conclusions arrived at by the National Committee and the Credentials Committee or not, every one admits that the contests were listened to by the members of the two Committees with great patience and at great length...
...344 La Follette...
...The Credentials Committee, consisting of one member from each state, chosen by the delegations from each state respectively, went into session as soon as possible after the members of the Convention assembled and continued day and night to hear the evidence concerning the contested delegations already passed upon by the National Committee...
...6 As Roosevelt had personally requested all his delegates either to vote for him or refrain from voting, it is fair to place his actual strength in the Convention at 107 plus 344, or 451...
...Roe's analysis of these contests will he presented in next week's issue.—Editor's Note...
...When the progressive platform was presented and read to the Convention in order to obtain a roll call upon its adoption it was necessary under the rules to have a second by two states...
...I do not release any delegate from his honorable obligation to vote for me, if he votes at all...
...To make this point perfectly clear, I quote from a statement issued by Timothy L. Woodruff, Republican machine boss of New York...
...The only pretended point of agreement between such men and those who have any real belief in progressive principles, is that stated by Colonel Roosevelt himself in his declaration that a clear majority of the delegates to the Chicago Convention "were chosen by the people to nominate ME...
...Woodruff says: "There are those who will ask how I can reconcile my present attitude (supporting the new party movement) with my past identity with the machine during the thirty years of my participation in public and political affairs...
...Such pretense if made would not deceive a child...
...There is one other circumstance I deem it proper to mention at this point, which proves the same thing, and that is, that there is and can be no real agreement on principles among the men prominent in the Roosevelt party movement...
...Theft" is Made the Issue IN THE LIGHT of these established facts, let us proceed to consider the charge that enough delegates were "stolen" from Colonel Roosevelt by the National Committee and the Credentials Committee and the Convention itself, to defeat him, and analyze the evidence upon which such charge is based, Ordinarily the charges and countercharges of unfairness made after a convention by the various factions of the party represented in the convention are not seriously considered...
...In this respect the action of the National Committee was in marked contrast to the action of that Committee in 1904, when it not only unseated the regularly elected delegates from the State of Wisconsin, but when the leaders of the then National administration by an organized system of interruptions prevented the case in behalf of the regular delegates from being even heard...
...Aftermath of Mississippi's Greatest Flood HUDDLED on the nearest high ground, and sometimes on their very housetops, without food or shelter, thousands of people dispossessed by the Mississippi flood, await succor from the public...
...The work of the Credentials Committee made no substantial change in the results arrived at by the National Committee...
...Seventy-four ad-ditional votes, therefore, must have been obtained from some source in order to have made Roosevelt's nomination in the Convention even a possibility...
...While there was some claim made that delegates whose seats were contested, should be excluded from the temporary roll, this point was not seriously insisted upon, and the delegates as seated by the National Committee all voted for the selection of a temporary chairman and otherwise participated in the temporary organization...
...Taft, the majority of the National Committee by the so-called 'steam roller' methods and with scandalous disregard of every principle of elementary honesty and decency stole eighty or ninety delegates, putting on the temporary roll call a sufficient number of fraudulent delegates to defeat the legally expressed will of the people and to substitute a dishonest for an honest majority...
...In the speech which Mr...
...In order, however, that there can be no possible question as to the maximum number of Roosevelt votes in the Convention, I have assumed that the 6 absent delegates would have voted for Roosevelt, had they been present...
...Obviously to exclude delegates from the temporary roll merely because they were contested, would be to put the control of the Convention in the hands of those who were most diligent in making contests, whether such contests had any merit or not and in the last analysis, would make any convention at all impossible if the various factions within the party would get up contests which involved all the delegates...
...Contributions should be sent to the mayor of your city, or the governor of your State, or to Jacob H. Schiff, treasurer American Red Cross, 52 William Street, New York City...
...he may favor ship subsidies or oppose them...
...Applause) * * * It is a naked fight against theft and thieves, and thieves shall not win...
...540 constituted a majority and was the minimum number of votes necessary to secure the nomination of any candidate...
...but this action was entirely ignored by Colonel Roosevelt's supporters...
...561 Roosevelt...
Vol. 4 • July 1912 • No. 29
