A CALL TO SERVICE
A Call to Service WHAT IS KNOWN as the progressive movement in American politics originated within the Republican party. The rank and file of the party is not now and never has been subservient to...
...These lords of high finance may really, believe "the public" is an institution, necessary albeit troublesome, divinely created for their private and personal exploitation...
...Progressive Republicans never had a higher call to greater service...
...Shortly thereafter he abandoned any attempt to discuss his "principles...
...His influence was openly on the side of the reactionaries...
...The course pursued by Roosevelt and Taft in the campaign and at the Chicago convention has destroyed all hope of a progressive Republican victory in the presidential contest...
...Every effort should be put forth to increase the number of thoroughgoing progressive Republicans in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives...
...The bills offered and pressed for action have shown real constructive statesmanship...
...The leaders in the House, the Democratic majority in the principal committees, have not marked out a progressive course...
...Nothing to do with it"—but every tired shopgirl, every underpaid clerk who gives his nickel for a ride in the crowded, stifling subway, gives part of that nickel to aid in paying August Belmont's $1,500,000 commission on the purchase and sale of a franchise that the subway company needed...
...The rank and file of the party is not now and never has been subservient to privilege in any form...
...While special interests have been increasing their hold upon the administrative side of the government at Washington, progressive Republicans in many staunch Republican states have wrested the control of government from these interests, and have enacted statutes restoring representative government to the people of those states...
...There was no chance for argument...
...Fraud and bribery were charged upon both sides...
...That control has been partisan rather than progressive...
...Tempers were at white heat...
...A political party is not made to order...
...And it was Bryan's superb leadership and courage which nominated a candidate for the presidency who has made a progressive record as Governor of New Jersey...
...It seems to me that the highest obligation of real progressive Republicans in every state is to maintain their organization and continue to fight within the lines of the Republican party for progressive principles, policies and candidates...
...In Wisconsin, federal office holders were lobby agents for the corporations, and spent their time almost wholly at the state capital during legislative sessions...
...The public," declared Belmont, in his testimony, "were not in it...
...The crisis in the Republican party, with greater reason than at any time since 1892, has aroused hope of Democratic success nationally...
...The situation here in Washington is supremely important...
...In a large number of Republican states there have been enacted definitely related progressive statutes based on scientific research which have reconstructed state government, Vitalizing it with human interest...
...Encouraged by Bryan's support of progressive principles, many Democrats in Wisconsin and other states, abandoned their party on state issues and supported the Republican progressive program...
...But what abject folly to seek upon such a basis to destroy a great political party seven millions strong, with a clear progressive majority in its ranks, within which there has been builded up a progressive movement that promises to make the Republican party the instrument through which government shall be completely restored to the people...
...Why not say, "This would serve our interests," and be done with it?—Milwaukee Journal...
...Ignoring issues, he lured the President into a campaign, so bitterly personal, that by the time of the Chicago convention, the frenzy and passion aroused subordinated everything to a fierce scramble to seat delegates and secure the nomination...
...Until direct nominations and the rigid control of campaign expenditures shall prevail they must seek to express their will through the imperfect agencies of congressional, state, and national conventions...
...From time to time this organized body expresses its purpose and names candidates to represent its principles...
...Vanderbilt, years ago, angrily shouted, "The public be damned...
...When will they be made to understand that "the public" knows differently...
...His appointees were the most active agents of the opposition...
...On those who would make this war upon Republican progressive achievement and Republican progressive candidates must rest the responsibility of the issue...
...This splendid body of fighting progressive Republicans forced Aldrichism and Cannonism to the last ditch, exposed the iniquities of the tariff bill of 1909, tore to pieces the pernicious railroad bill of 1910, recasting it into a measure in the public interest, and, acting in unison, gave progressive Republican principles a distinct character of commanding importance throughout the country...
...The Roosevelt men charged that the Taft men were stealing the convention...
...Lies were as good as facts...
...That balance would serve as a check upon any President, if reactionary...
...The election of a strong body of progressive Republicans in both branches of Congress may enable them to hold the balance of power in legislation...
...Belmont tells us "the public were not in it...
...In Congress the progressive Republicans in the Senate and the House have furnished the only consistent progressive program of legislation...
...No break should be permitted in the progressive ranks which will endanger the election of any true progressive Republican anywhere...
...It is time for progressive Republicans to act with the greatest deliberation...
...Until little more than one year ago, Roosevelt had not even expressed himself as friendly to what had become—while he was in Africa—so widely known as the progressive Republican movement...
...Ground lost now cannot soon, if ever, be recovered...
...The contest in many of these states was severe and protracted...
...I am somewhat acquainted with the conditions which prevailed in northern and western states where I spoke year after year in support of the effort to establish progressive Republican government, and I know that the same opposition was encountered in most of those states...
...Going just far enough to placate those who are content to accept form instead of substance, they have never gone far enough to endanger special interest control in legislation...
...Interest control in Congress may change its party label and still be powerful in determining the character of the legislation enacted...
...Should victory come to the Democratic presidential ticket, in view of the present control of the House and the attitude of the strong Democratic leaders of the Senate, such victory carries with it small assurance of progressive gains in legislation...
...Opinions ripen into fixed convictions...
...Belmont said he regarded the transaction as perfectly proper, because the subway company had to have the franchise in question in order to build its line, and he was entitled to demand all he considered it to be worth, on that basis...
...The truth was discounted...
...The public, Belmont admitted, had not known of this huge commission collected by him for his services in the transaction —which sum was, of course, subsequently squeezed out of the public by the subway company...
...The attitude of Wall Street toward "the public" was expressed tersely by August Belmont at a public hearing in New York...
...Democrats are in the majority in the House of Representatives...
...IT IS ALL RIGHT ENOUGH for the Interstate Commerce Commission to investigate the rates, practices and regulations which apply to the railroad transportation of anthracite coal, but what the ordinary consumer wants is some investigation of the rates, practices and customs that interfere with his getting it stored in his cellar at a price he can really afford.—Indianapolis News...
...Belmont's Own Little Affair MR...
...There are progressive Republican governors and state officers to elect to administer and safeguard these statutes and lead the way along advancing lines...
...If everything charged against the Chicago convention be true, then the Tapt forces, because of advantage in controlling the National Committee, simply succeeded in doing the identical thing in the identical way that the Roosevelt machine did in 1908, and would have done in 1912, if in a position to have seated their wrongfully credentialed delegates...
...It rapidly advanced its control, shaping the policies of state administrations and stamping its impression upon national legislation as a distinctly progressive Republican movement, and upon this fact in recent political history I appeal to progressive Republicans everywhere to maintain their organization within the Republican party...
...Defeat was encountered again and again...
...Sound ideas sieze upon the human mind...
...They had nothing to do with it...
...The reforms that have been wrought out in Wisconsin, Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Washington, Oregon, and California, were secured under Republican leadership and through Republican legislation...
...No aid or encouragement should be given to a third party plan to divide the progressive vote and destroy the progressive Republican movement...
...Is this great constructive work, in state and national government, the result of years of patient and intelligent effort within the Republican party, to be imperiled, the election of progressive Republican governors, legislatures, Congressmen, and United States Senators to be jeopardized to make the new party for Roosevelt who in no sense represents the high ideals of those who made the Republican party progressive in many states against his opposition and who nationalized progressive policies in his absence from the country...
...Belmont admitted that he had bought a street railway franchise for $272,000 and then sold it to the subway company for $1,500,000, the difference between the two sums being the profit, or commission, of August Belmont & Co., Bankers...
...If recreant to their trust the party may suffer the temporary defeat of its purposes...
...But there remains a most important service for the strong progressive element in the Republican party to render in this campaign...
...To maintain such organization, blind allegiance to every party nomination and to every party declaration is not essential...
...Not until about five months ago did he make his so-called declaration of principles...
...The millions cannot be assembled...
...IF MEN WOULD ONLY STOP telling us that the real interests of the country demand quiet and security more even than they demand fair dealing, we could listen to them...
...There are legislatures to elect to carry forward this and other creative work...
...I would in no degree disparage the good work of progressive Democrats...
...The failure of a political convention through passion, intrigue, or corruption, to represent the will of the millions who constitute a political party, with inspiring traditions and progressive promise, should not be permitted to destroy that party...
...They are temporarily delegated to represent the millions who constitute the party...
...Threats of personal violence were common...
...The Taft men charged the Roosevelt men with trying to steal the convention...
...And upon this mad squabble for office between two men, under whose administrations the Republican party had made the trust, tariff and special interest records for which it is most severely criticised, it is proposed to destroy a sound and vital progressive movement, which had already gone far to nationalize itself within a great and powerful organization...
...It is the slow development of powerful forces working in our social life...
...Masses of men are drawn together by common belief and organized about clearly defined principles...
...and, if progressive, would aid him to wring from reactionary opposition in both houses, legislation to protect public interest...
...Investigation was baffled...
...BRYAN'S REFUSAL to work with the Morgans and Belmonts and Ryans, and his rebuke to the sinister influence of their kind in politics and government emanated from a very clear recognition that the exploited can not hope for justice from their exploiters...
...These agencies are not the party...
...While Roosevelt was President, he offered no encouragement to the progressive Republicans who were struggling with the old machine bosses to enact direct primaries and other progressive statutes...
...In no partisan spirit I repeat that the progressive movement began within the Republican party...
Vol. 4 • July 1912 • No. 30
