Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 240, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 October 1912 — PROGRESSIVE PARTY HOPE OF THE SOUTH. [ARTICLE]

PROGRESSIVE PARTY HOPE OF THE SOUTH.

Fairfax Harrison, president of the Monon route, speaking as a southerner and a business man, has declared his adherence to the Progressive party. “Since the days of the civil war the South has had but one „ party, the Democratic party. After the war the negroes, under the leadership of the office holders sent into the south by the federal government, were enlisted as Republicans. This soon forced practically all the white men into the other party. “I have long felt that the only way to break up this one-party system and to give the south real political expression lay in the abolishing of the old party labels. Call a man a Republican or a Democrat and he will feel bound to vote according to the Republican or Democratic tradition, but call him a conservative or a liberal, and you have at once arranged a new political division. “There are many men in the south who have been voting the Democratic ticket for years, although the Democratic policies have not met the needs of the industrial development- of the new south. For such men it seems to me that the new party offers a logical way out. “My second reason for believing in the new party lies in its attitude toward business. Ever since the days of Henry Clay the tariff has been an issue because it has meant: “What is the relation of the government to business? This is what has made it interesting to thepeople. Today that same problem has more definite form in the relation of the government to the large combinations of capital known as the trusts.

“Neither of the old parties.has had anything definitely constructive to offer on the trust problem. They have tinkered at it They have attacked btlsiness here and there, but they have offered no remedy. “To my mind the trust platform of the Progressive party, though radical in form, is truly conservative in result. It is not a new plan. Many people have long believed it to be the best solution. “I did not come into the new party at the time when Mr. Roosevelt was deprived of the nomination at the Republican national convention. I was not sure then that the new party movement might not be merely a. one-man movement I would not follow Mr. Roosevelt in such a party. —“But I went to the national Progressive convention, mainly out of curiosity, I suppose. I .came then to appreciate that there was in this movement a real spirit that gave it vitality and permanence. The sight of 15,000 people singing the Doxology with tears in their eyes may not recommend itself as a practical means of solving political problems, but' it means that there was at that convention —leaving out all the Insincerities, all the politicians, all the unessential things that have been swept up in this great basket —a basis of that sound and wholesome emotion that accomplishes more great things in this world than pure intellectuality. “I do not know whether the Progressive party will win at this election, but I do feel sure that it will go on as a lasting force in our national life. Men will come into it later who are not in it now. Its place of future usefulness is certain.”