Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 298, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1912 — Defeated But Not Disgraced. [ARTICLE]

Defeated But Not Disgraced.

In the triangular "fight this year a party with a great record was retired. It was not its first defeat, not is it by any means final. The St. Louis Globe-Democrat in a reflective mood offers some facts that are suggestive for the future. It says: “In turning 6Xer the control of the affairs of the country to another party the republicans have the pleasure of reporting everything in solvent shape, with prosperity at high tide in all the states and outlying districts. Another item to which attention is called by an official statement sets forth the fact that the foreign trade of the United States for the year 1912 will pass the four-b.illion line for tha* first time. When the Dingley law was passed in 1897 it was said that the return of a protective policy would cripple our foreign trade and set the world against us to our heavy loss. What really happened was a great and general increasfe. Our foreign trade in 1897, the total of exports and imports, was $1,810,000,000. - It passed $2,000,000,000 in 1899, and will exceed $4,000,000,000 in the present calendar year. “This ad\>ance _j»erfild have been called progressiveness before the word fell into freakish disrepute. It is enough now to refer to it as solid progress. All has occurred under protective tariffs, one of which is still in force, though short ly to be sapped and mined by a minority of voters invested *with complete authority by pluralities in a three-sided fight. A majority of voters supported protective platforms in the recent contest, but this majority must go into the background for the next two years. The republican party does not consider Die year 1912 a barren one for itself. Ip national convention assembled it rejected a third-term movement ior the second time. Jt would rather stand by its principles and be defeated than go into any form of demagogy for the sake of expediency. In two former years it was retired. But how quickly and gladly the people recalled it.”