THE PLATFORM AND THE CANDIDATE
The Platform and the Candidate THE PLATFORM adopted by the Republican convention at Chicago cannot fail to be a disappointment to the great majority of the party. The reactionary element of the...
...The first essential of an honest party platform is a clear declaration of principles...
...Federal Reserve Bank Law.' 2. Favored the creation of a Federal Trade Commission...
...It assumed national proportions...
...They favored a general employers liability act, in so far as federal jurisdiction extended...
...To determine the facts which may be declared by law to be a violation of the anti-trust law...
...The nomination of Mr...
...In 1912, the Wisconsin member of the Committee on Resolutions presented a minority report on platform embracing eighteen propositions...
...More than four million progressive Republican voters left the party in 1912...
...Henry Allen Cooper of Wisconsin...
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...It is not a pleasant task to criticise the action of the political party to which one belongs...
...The reactionary element of the party were in control of the convention...
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...The Wisconsin platform presented to the Republican National Convention" in 1916, as a minority report, was rejected with hoots and jeers...
...They were earnest, patriotic men who had faith in Roosevelt as a leader...
...4. To provide for the physical valuation of the railroad property of the country...
...That platform pledged the creation of a Legislative Reference D»» partment in the Library of Congress, for the use of Congress...
...In 1908 the Wisconsin member of the Committee on Resolutions presented to the convention a minority report on the platform embracing thirteen propositions...
...Upon the Tariff, the minority platform among othar things declared for— 5. The creation of a tariff commission...
...But it is upon the subject of railroad regulation that the gentlemen who framed up the Chicago platform gave the country its greatest surprise...
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...The choice is not unlike that of Benjamin Harrison after the first Cleveland administration...
...The Wisconsin platform of this year will be found printed on smother page of this issue of LA FOLLETTE'S...
...It is a source of hope and encouragement that his selection came in response to the insistent demand of the masses of Republicans for a candidate on whom the party might reasonably unite and agree...
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...1...
...That limitation is economically sound...
...8. They declared for publicity of campaign contributions and expenditures...
...They are for public interest and against privilege and monopoly control of government...
...Walter C. Owen, of...
...Rejected by Republican conventions, the Wisconsin minority platforms of 1908 and 1912 were WITHIN EIGHT SHORT YEARS adopted by Congress and almost bodily WRITTEN INTO FEDERAL STATUTE...
...As stated in the Republican platforms of 1904 and 1908,— "THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COST OF PRODUCTION AT HOME AND ABROAD," became the true measure of a protective tariff, above which duties could not in good faith be placed...
...Justice Hughes will be acceptable to the great body of the progressive Republicans of the country...
...They pledged the enactment of a law to prohibit the issuance of injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes, when such injunctions would not apply when no labor dispute existed, and provided that in no case shall an injunction be issued when, there existed a remedy by the ordinary processes of law, and provided further than in contempt proceedings arising in such cases, the parties cited' shall be entitled to a trial by jury, except when the contempt be committed in the presence of the court...
...To require uniformity of accounting and book-keeping...
...That platform favored a valuation of the physical properties of railroads...
...THE LAW...
...He is able, independent, fearless, and possessed of high civic spirit...
...The Wisconsin member of the Committee on Resolutions found no support among the delegates on that Committee (one from each state) for any proposition in the platform which he presented to that committee and afterward submitted to the convention as his minority report...
...There was probably no other man upon whom so many Republicans of all elements could have been joined in support...
...I shall continue the discussion of these and other platform issues, as the campaign progresses...
...Wisconsin...
...And the Convention itself, was not only against the Wisconsin platform, but so intolerant and hostile and so solidly reactionary as to grossly insult Wisconsin's Progressive Republican member of the Committee on Resolutions, and deny him an opportunity to be fairly heard...
...They are Republicans...
...a. FOURTH.-Favored the commitment to the Federal Trade Commission of the tariff investigations proposed to be committed by the platform of 1908, to the Tariff Commission...
...They represent but a small minority of the seven million voters comprising the Republican party in the fullness of its strength...
...They made the platform in open defiance of the known convictions of five million progressive Republicans, without whose votes they would just about carry Utah and Vermont...
...But, instructed by experience, the millions of thoughtful, patriotic, progressive Republicans drawn together by common belief in principles vital to the life of democracy have faith that they will ultimately make the Reublican party, the party of real national progress...
...IT IS AN EXPRESSION OF POLITICAL DOCTRINE EMBRACING CONSISTENT LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS OF VITAL IMPORTANCE TO THE MATERIAL PROSPERITY AND HAPPINESS OF OUR PEOPLE AND THE RELATION WHICH WE ARE TO SUSTAIN AMONG THE NATIONS OF THE WORLD...
...That platform pledged the extension of the postal service to includo a parcels post...
...Without warning, with no intimation made to the public that such a thing was contemplated by anybody, like a bolt out of a blue sky comes a platform declaration for the abolition of every state railroad commission in the country...
...They can do this, and, with unity of purpose, they can give the best that is in them to the nomination and election of a state and national ticket in Wisconsin, which will insure to the people a sound economic government and continued leadership among the states in the long struggle to achieve a perfected democracy...
...The Wisconsin candidate and the Wisconsin platform were voted down in the last Republican convention at Chicago, just as in 1908 and 1912...
...Hughes is somewhat the type of man that Harrison was, but with more warmth and personal magnetism...
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...It was its high purpose to wrest government from the control of organized privilege and restore it to the people...
...The Tory Bosses, well supplied with funds by privileged interests...
...Supplied with unlimited funds, the National Committee can perpetuate its control when it represents but a small minority of the voters...
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...The suggestion follows that there is a wide difference between "prosecution and perscution" and assurance is given that "business" is to be "encouraged...
...The Tory Republicans, through control of the party machinery, were able to write the platform of 1916...
...It became a potential legislative force in both branches of Congress...
...The Wisconsin platform presented to the Republican National Convention in 1912, as a minority report, was treated with silent contempt and denied a record vote...
...FIRST...
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...LA FOLLETTE'S presents an outline of the platform proposals of the Wisconsin delegation in 1908 and 1912 and a statement of the legislation which followed...
...In what it definitely promises and suggests, it smacks strongly of bounties, subventions and subsidies...
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...These requirements become more imperative where differences have arisen within the party over important questions and where party pledges have been perverted and violated in the past...
...The people in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, Oregon, California and every other state, are to have the regulation of the rates and services of the railroads within each state taken out of the hands of their own commission, subject to their own control, and turned over to the Federal government...
...Upon the subject of railroads this minority platform favored— 1. The enlargement, of the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission, so that the Commission could institute proceedings upon its own motion...
...THIRD...
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...That movement represented the modern political thought on fundamental democracy...
...It is more than that...
...This, with modifications of it, teas included in the Republican platform of 1912, and is in the Republican platform of 1916...
...1 Except for...
...There is no question of his personal and political integrity...
...If adopted and honestly applied, the tariff would forever cease to be a political issue...
...A higher rate cannot be justified and will not be tolerated...
...The Ship-Trust will be highly gratified with the platform...
...Hundreds of thousands of progressive Republicans who had no confidence in the political integrity of Roosevelt refused to abandon the party and follow him at that time...
...10...
...That platform pledged the government to build, own and operate a railroad in Alaska...
...Neither was it presented as the most comprehensive and perfect treatment which could be offered upon the subjects introduced...
...The progressive movement originated with the Republican party...
...The railroads are for it...
...To ascertain the difference in the cost of production at home and abroad...
...They favored the extension of the existing eight-hour law to all government employees and to all workers, whether employed by contractors or sub-contractors doing work in behalf of the government...
...Senator Lodge and his platform committee were content to express the belief that those who violate the laws in "regulation of business" should be "individually punished...
...It would have been the part of wisdom for those in control of the Chicago convention to have remembered this recent history...
...Eleven of these have been enacted into law, and two are in the majority platform of the 1916 convention...
...In'1912, the La Follette delegates presented a minority report through Hon...
...The delegates who mocked and derided the declarations of that platform will pass and be forgotten...
...Together with those who joined the Third Party, they constitute an overwhelming majority of the total membership of the Republican party...
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...Of the eighteen proposals, presented in 1912, fourteen have been written into the federal statutes, one has been partly enacted into law, and one is in the majority platform of 1916...
...The recent advances in passenger and freight rates have greatly increased the popularity of the Interstate Commerce Commission with the railroads...
...It may be that the Wisconsin platform and the Wisconsin candidate will be voted down as at the two previous conventions, but now as then Wisconsin will keep the progressive fire burning on the altar of our cause, a beacon light to all the country, their everlasting pledge that there can be no surrender and no compromise until the Wisconsin way is made the national way...
...9. They declared for the regulation of telephone and telegraph rates and services...
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...This is now included, in a restricted form, in the 1916 Republican pM~ form...
...13...
...But the facts of history prove that there is still opportunity for real party leadership and real public service...
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...the second that its pledges in support of principles by legislative enactment and administrative policy, shall be so definite and specific that it will not admit of any evasion...
...Wisconsin Points the Way ON THE 22nd of last February I said to the Republicans of Wisconsin : '' I am a candidate for the Republican nomination for President in 1916—as I was in 1912 and in 1908—and for the same reasons...
...But it presented proposals of great importance which it was believed should be offered at that time and which would commend themselves to the wisdom and the patriotism of Republicans who ought to be ready to take the next forward step in progressive legislation...
...Even as late as 1912 the platform proclaimed this doctrine: "The Republican party is opposed to special privilege and monopoly.'' And further it favored legislation "SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE EXISTING ANTI-TRUST ACT WHICH WILL DEFINE AS CRIMINAL OFFENSES, THOSE SPECIFIC ACTS THAT UNIFORMLY MARK ATTEMPTS TO RESTRAIN AND TO MONOPOLIZE TRADE...
...And I believe that the principles of real progressive Republicans,—the great, upstanding principles vital to fundamental democracy,—will find the truest expression, the widest and most uncompromising representation, in the progressive Republican delegation which Wisconsin will elect to the Chicago Convention on the 4th day of next April...
...It can be scientifically ascertained and enforced...
...We believe the people of every state will fight this proposition to the last ditch...
...To Progressive Republicans of Wisconsin: PROGRESSIVE Republicans of Wisconsin have issues at stake in this campaign of supreme importance...
...Upon the subject of banking and currency that platform pledged federal aid to those banks that extended a general preference to strictly commercial as against speculative loans, and a carefully worked out emergency circulation, under control of the government, backed by a proper reserve and issued only against commercial paper that represented actual transactions...
...These issues cannot be obscured by the European war scare, by the dust kicked up by the marchers in the parades of Big Business, or by the platform provisions for a military and naval program so elastic as to cover the ever-expanding patriotism of the munition makers, who are for the Old Flag with an APPROPRIATION...
...That platform favored the adoption of the pending income tax amendment...
...4...
...Such differences have existed within the Republican party, and platform pledges have been distorted and broken,— upon the tariff, upon the prohibition of trusts and combinations, upon the merchant marine, upon railway regulation, and upon other important issues...
...The great mass of these voters are men of deep convictions...
...2. To establish classification...
...He was not the choice of the reactionary element, which framed the platform and otherwise controlled the convention...
...The Wisconsin platform presented to the Republican National Convention in 1908, as a minority report, was denounced as '' socialism" by Senator Hopkins, who as chairman, presented the majority report on platform...
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...Whatever their disappointment in the nationat platform, they can write their convictions and their aspirations with a free hand into the state platform...
...THIS IS NOW THE LAW.— (Clayton Act) 7. That platform denounced the interpretation of the anti-trust law for the purpose of suppressing unions and co-operative efforts of wage-earner* and farmers, and pledged,a revision of the law making such a construction impossible...
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...This is included as a part of the platform for 1916...
...6. Upon the subject of trusts and monopolies that minority platform advocated legislation to remove uncertainty by specifying and prohibiting methods, practices and conditions which experience has shown to be harmful...
...That means that to secure any relief from excessive state rates, to correct abuses as to railroad service which is purely a state service, and a matter of local concern, the people will have to come to Washington and appear before the Interstate Commerce Commission for redress...
...But what I have said in this connection, is compelled by my convictions...
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...The principles enunciated in that platform will ultimately find a permanent place in national legislation...
...It was united...
...It was striding to power like a young giant...
...That platform pledged the adoption of a federal inheritance tax...
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...It was not presented to the Committee on Resolutions by the representative of the Wisconsin delegation as covering all of the subjects which should be dealt with by the convention...
...If affirmed "THE RIGHT OF EVERY MAN TO ACQUIRE COMMODITIES AND PARTICULARLY THE NECESSARIES OF LIFE IN AN OPEN MARKET, UNINFLUENCED BY THE MANIPULATION OF TRUST OR COMBINATION.'' The reactionaries who made the platform of 1916 FORGOT the criminal combinations which were so menacing in 1912 as to make it imperative to declare for criminal statutes, "supplementary to the existing anti-trust law...
...division in its ranks, resulting in reverses for which Roosevelt was responsible, it would have written the Republican platforms of 1912 and 1916...
...Again and again had Republican platforms denounced "COMBINATIONS TO CREATE MONOPOLIES, LIMIT PRODUCTION OR TO CONTROL PRICES," and declared for "SUCH LEGISLATION AS WELL EFFECTIVELY RESTRAIN AND PREVENT ALL SUCH ABUSES, PROTECT AND PROMOTE COMPETITION...
...It spread rapidly among the Republican states of the North and West...
...3. To suspend a proposed increase in rates when same is ehallenged by shipper or consumer...
...I believe that patriotic progressive Republicans are at this time under the highest moral obligation to contest every foot of the ground in every state in the Union for representation in the Chicago Convention...
...The railroad press of the country will support it...
...9. That platform renewed the pledge of 1908 for the creation of a Department of Labor...
...It will be easier to concentrate the corporate power of the country upon the control of one commission located here in Washington than upon forty-eight commissions working under the eye of the people they serve...
...7. The minority declared for the election of Senators by direct vote...
...But the principles declared in that candidacy by the platform presented on the 8th day of June, 1916, will be vindicated by history, as were the candidacies and the platforms presented by Wisconsin in 1908 and in 1912...
...That, platform pledged direct election of United States Senators...
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...Without going into specific detail with respect to these propositions which were characterized in 1908 as ''socialism" and in 1912 were not accorded the courtesy of a record vote, it would be well not only for Progressives but for Standpatters as well to have in mind an outline of these promises, and of the action of Congress upon the legislation to which the minority sought to commit the party...
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...This is not -compulsory, but the Federal Trade Commission is loorking to secure such uniform accounting...
...Its tariff provision goes back to the vague evasive terms, '' reasonable," "adequate," "sufficient," "just," "fair"—language associated in the public mind with the old-time tariff game,, and responsible for much of the ill repute which standpat representatives of Privilege have brought upon a sound economic policy—when properly safeguarded...
...8. That platform renewed the pledge of 1908 with respect to the limitations of the issuance of injunctions in cases arising out of labor disputes...
...A struggle between the progressive and standpat Republicans over the reduction of the Dingier tariff forced into the platforms of 1904 and 1908 a definite legislative limitation upon tariff rates...
...3. SECOND...
...That platform favored the extension of suffrage to women...
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...That limitation is not found in the Chicago platform...
...He will go as far as his convictions carry him, and no ulterior influences can stop him...
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...G. The minority platform favored legislation to exempt labor organizations from the anti-trust laws...
...Some of these provisions were incorporated in the...
...They are to have their state governments taken away from them to this extent, abrogated, abolished...
...The law now permits such investigations by direction of the President...
...They favored the creation of a Department of Labor...
...In the convention of 1908, the La .Follette delegates presented a minority report on resolutions through Hon...
...That platform pledged legislation providing for the widest publicity, and limitation of campaign expenditures...
...pack-' conventions, and "steam-roll" platforms...
...It is a plain, honest, frank declaration upon every subject with which it deals...
...THIS IS NOW...
Vol. 8 • June 1916 • No. 6
