Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 121, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 May 1913 — SOUND ARGUMENT BY WILLIAM B. AUSTIN [ARTICLE]

SOUND ARGUMENT BY WILLIAM B. AUSTIN

In Retiring aa President of Hamilton Club He Makes Address Pointing Out Party Errors. • William B. Austin, of Chicago, but for many a of Renseslaer, and whose recognition in the social, club and business life of Chicago has doubtless? made him the most distinguished native son of this city, has just retired as president of the Hamilton Club, the leading, political organization of Chicago. He was the president during a very troublous time, owing to the fact that there were a number of members of the Hamilton Club who were admirers of Theodore Roosevelt and some who were not only Roosevelt men, but devoted to the avowed principals of. the progressive movement to the point of severing their lifelong political relations. Mr. Austin proved a very able head for the organization during the campaign and it is doubtful if another man could have been found who wdpld have held the members true to the republican Party in so nearly a unanimous manner. Mr. Austin did not claim infallability for the republican party, he did not denounce those who felt the call of the moose, but he did claim that the republican party Would prove itself responsive to the demands of the people whenever the people asserted themselves, and that it would embody in its policies every measure its K majority advocated when the demand wa’s made early enough to show how the majority believed. Mr. Austin believed in the perpetuity of the republican party and in holding to its tenets and reforming it as the needs of reform became evident. Only a very few members were lost to the club and the fellowship was n no sense marred and now the Hamilton Chib is certain to become a more important factor than ever before in the republican party and n the reconstruction work now going on. Holding the views Mr. Austin did we believe that republicans and progressives alike will endorse his attitude and be interested in the advice which he gave in his annual report which marked his retirement as president. The address is here published and we trust that all will read it and consider the recommendations it contains: ‘

‘The Hamilton club is a republican organization,” he declared, “made so by its constitution and by-laws, its traditions and its tenets, and yet it has had to consider the feelings of those members of the club who in the best faith saw fit to support Colonel Roosevelt for president, and although there are members of this board whose ideas were inclined in that direction, they have given this administration their loyal support, and I desire to -extend to those members as well as all the members of this board my .sincere thanks. It is impossible to carry on the work of a club of this manitude without proper cooperation between the president and the directors, and this co-operation-has at all times been present. “It might not be improper to say in this connection that the president of the club is, and for the past year has been, a republican, and was an ardent supporter of William Howard Taft, but that he did not approve of all the acts of the republican national convention, not owing, however, to the acts themselves, but to the fault of the rules governing the national committee and the convention, as the committee but carried out the rules adopted by the national committee and the convention held prior to this one. Tt would be a grievous blunder,

indeed, for the republican party to hold another convention under the rules now prevailing, and I would urge upon the national committee that they either assemble themselves, or call a convention to assemble, which convention would take action to remedy the defects which were so apparent in the last national convention, and particularly the rule regarding representation from the states. It is a travesty upon justice and right that

the state of Mississippi should go into a republican national convention with the same voting power as the state of Michigan, and It Is the rankest kind of error to per mit the southern states to dictate the name of the candidate In ajNu publican national convention. “In making these observations, I do not mean to be understood that I in any manner uphold the stand of Colonel Roosevelt in endeavoring to form a new third party, in fact, I think he has made a grievous mistake; and there is no man in this room who will live to see the day when Theodore Roosevelt, Governor Hiram A. Jonnson, Albert J. Beveridge; or any one else promln-

ent In the ranks of the progressive party of the present day will be president of the United States. “With the same consistency Champ Clark, who received on eight different ballots a majority of the delegates in the Baltimore convention, could have declared that he was the rightful nominee of that convention and formed a new party in definance of the fact that the rules of the democratic convention made is necessary that the successful candidate should receive a, twothirds vote.” •Following the address by Mr. Austin the Hamilton Club unanimously adopted the following resolution: “Resolved, That is be expressed as the sense of the Hamilton Club of Chicago that the basis of representation in republican national conventions should be the republican vote cast at the last preceding presidential election.”