ROOSEVELT TACTICS
Roosevelt Tactics I F MR. ROOSEVELT had labored for the last ten or fifteen years on the problem of destroying the power of the political machine—if the plan of nominating all candidates for office...
...What would become of the progressive movement under such leadership...
...It has never been tried...
...That is the meaning of the telegram which each one received from Roosevelt's managers in Illinois...
...he would know that they were the basis of a new political order...
...The doctor injects—not the antitoxin, but water, or a poison...
...A TYPOGRAPHICAL ERROR To the Editor: May I call the attention of your readers to a typographical error in my article entitled "Massachusetts and the Minimum Wage...
...He completely dominates its policy and the real significance of his tactics is revealed as it could not be in the more complex political situations in which he has been a conspicuous figure...
...Governor Deneen of Illinois was not asked by Roosevelt's agent how he would stand as to Lorimer's successor,—a matter of grave importance to the whole nation...
...Wallace Batchelder, Bethel, Vt...
...He supported Lodge for United States Senator two years ago, and Penrose for United States Senator four years ago...
...The patient languishes, or is killed...
...If Cannon and McKinley, frightened at the sight of the Big Stick, should promise to come out for the Roosevelt party, they would have no progressive opponents in their districts...
...In a collective way, as a rule for national life, we have never tried it...
...ROOSEVELT had labored for the last ten or fifteen years on the problem of destroying the power of the political machine—if the plan of nominating all candidates for office by direct vote of the people had been worked into his convictions, as it has into his speech, he would better understand the philosophy and evolution of primary elections...
...There never was a more reactionary move in politics or one that showed less regard for public good, than the Roosevelt policy expressed in the Batchelder telegram, which he and his lieutenants are carrying out to the very limit to punish and reward where it suits their ends, as in Illinois, but, with Rooseveltian exemption from all laws of consistency, are ignoring where it does not fit the situation, as in Wisconsin...
...The bosses named the candidates from President to coroner, the corporations furnished the money, the national, state, and local government was almost completely subverted to special interests before the American people awoke to the dangers that threatened their institutions...
...It is characteristic of Roosevelt that while he seizes upon issues that make good propaganda and gives them publicity, he has not the patience nor stability nor depth of conviction to prevent his sacrificing essential principles and permanent results to personal considerations and temporary advantage...
...But they are plainly given to understand, —and some of them are the most pronounced reactionaries in public life,—that if they declare for Roosevelt they will be aided, or at least will not be opposed, by Roosevelt...
...Yours truly, Elizabeth Gardiner Evans...
...is Roosevelt's sole test of qualification for a Progressive...
...Milwaukee Journal...
...Having wired Oyster Bay for a confirmation of this telegram and made sure it was authentic, Batchelder replied in part, as follows:"I supposed that I was fighting for the real rule of the people and against bosses and bossism...
...We cannot endorse any candidate of either party who will not support Roosevelt electors in the coming election...
...It has not been tried...
...Jefferson did, and Lincoln followed him...
...Wallace Batchelder...
...Of course, it would be reactionary...
...In Ohio, Judge E. B. Dillon was nominated on the Republican ticket for Governor...
...nor would he, after failing to be nominated at the Convention, now be seeking to build a third party on the rotten foundation of boss and machine rule...
...It is the Roosevelt way...
...In the primary campaign he actively supported Roosevelt as the progressive candidate...
...What is the verdict...
...I have found it...
...On July 20, Mr...
...And yet, Roosevelt threatens to beat senators, congressmen, governors, sheriffs, and coroners unless they declare for him...
...Dillon was enough of a progressive to be acceptable to progressives and was assured that no opposition would be made by them to his candidacy...
...But it has never been tried...
...But really there is no reason for condemning the remedy...
...MEN WHO BELIEVE that the chief duty of society and government is to aid them in becoming prosperous, while the masses should be left to struggle with adverse conditions as best they may—and men of this kind are deplorably numerous— are in their selfishness prone to exaggerate their power and influence and to entertain the idea that all public questions must be settled in accordance with their wishes and opinions...
...I depend on you for your support in this matter...
...In his pre-convention campaign, he would hardly have presumed to treat the primary principle as though it were an original proposition especially designed to forward his campaign for a third term...
...Dillon very properly refused and, unwilling to take the chances of defeat, withdrew as a candidate...
...Let's Have a lest A GREAT DOCTOR comes along with, let us say, a cure for tuberculosis...
...So with the principle of real, pure democracy...
...or whether he would support a progressive state program...
...Probably a great many minds would so say...
...It is an anti-toxin...
...But Roosevelt thereafter demanded that Dillon declare for him (Roosevelt) or face the opposition of a second candidate...
...He comes rushing from his laboratory, crying like Archimedes of old, "Eureka...
...The demand of the world would be for a real trial of it...
...Your telegram * * * makes it plain that you direct me, and men in every state that we must not vote for any candidate for office, no matter how honest, able, efficient, or progressive he may be, unless that candidate will agree to pay for our votes * * * by supporting Roosevelt electors...
...Patriots and philosophers and theorists have cried out for democracy as the remedy for governmental evils...
...A patient is offered for the treatment...
...Roosevelt and Wallace Batchelder of Bethel, Vermont, printed in the Rutland Daily Herald of July 29, is illustrative of the tactics of Roosevelt...
...How do you stand on ME...
...We should all say, "Let's have a test...
...He has always played this kind of a political game...
...The recall would have snapped him off in a month or two.—Seattle Star...
...Upon this understanding he accepted the nomination...
...We have tried everything else...
...Let's try it...
...With grief, the depth of which you cannot know, I have decided, after one of the hardest fights I have ever been forced to put up, that I cannot longer support you for President of the United States...
...When it comes to be tried, really and fully, it will probably turn out to be the universal anti-toxin which will kill all the evil germs in our social life...
...Roosevelt is not concerned about a progressive Congress...
...Batchelder was one of the Roosevelt Rough Riders in 1898 and an ardent Roosevelt admirer...
...Loyalty to progressive principles has nothing to do with the matter...
...1912...
...The Illinois congressmen were not catechized as to their position on national legislation...
...The laboratory results are probably correct...
...THE FACT that the impeachment got Hanford is no argument against the recall of judges...
...That the anti-toxin is a failure...
...The primary object of abolishing the caucus and convention system and substituting direct elections, was to take away from the political machine the power it wielded through the office-holding hierarchy, by which the national bosses controlled state bosses who, in turn, controlled local bosses...
...The last thing to be tolerated of a new political party, professing to stand for progress, is to hark back to boss and machine rule through threats and coercion of candidates for office...
...An Aldrich Senate and a Cannon House are satisfactory to him, if he can win more easily with that kind of a combination...
...And so of Christianity...
...One dose of it injected into the veins will kill forever the germs of consumption...
...Theodore Roosevelt...
...On the other hand, Hadley of Missouri, and Borah of Idaho, neither of whom will go into the Roosevelt party, are to be punished by having Roosevelt tickets put up against them in their states...
...Batchelder received the following telegram from the former President: New York, July 20...
...And yet, it is exactly the plan Roosevelt pursued when President...
...It required much fighting, considerable money and eleven months for the impeachment weapon to cut Hanford off...
...Imagine a Congress elected on this basis...
...The date at which the recently enacted law will take effect is July 1, 1913, not 1916, as it appeared in the text...
...It was this that made his administration as President, although a time of reform agitation, barren of constructive legislation and a period for growth of evils that might have been avoided under wiser leadership...
...The third party movement promises to illumine this inherent weakness of Roosevelt as has no other phase of his political career...
...A Case in Point CORRESPONDENCE between Mr...
...Let's try real democracy...
Vol. 4 • August 1912 • No. 32
