Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 242, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1913 — The Democratic Hope. [ARTICLE]

The Democratic Hope.

The Washington correspondent of the Indianapolis News, whose loyalty to the present national administration no one will question, writes this significant message to his paper: “The members of the democratic congressional campaign committee are distinctly pleased with the announcement made by the progressive party leaders that Bull Moose candidates for the congress will be nominated in every district next year. The democrats are saying privately that if the progressives will only carry out this determination, another democratic house of representatives will be assured. The democratic view is that if the progressives Will get into next year’s congressional campaign in an energetic way, tiie new party, while it will not begin to make the showing it made in the presidential campaign last year, will draw enough votes from the republicans to make certain the election of a democratic house.” Here is a confession from -an aqthoratative source of just what a good many -honest progressives have evidently been suspencting, as is shown by their votes in. Michigan, Maine, New Jersey and elsewhere recently They see that the third party movement means only what these democrats in congress are now confessing—a means for putting aqd keeping a democratic administration in power, from president and congress down to -the humblest political office. They see that democrats regard the progressive party as a mounting block, without which they would never be able to vault into the saddle—a means to an end, a convenient tool to be laid away after using and brought out again when -required, an umbrella to protect them from the rain of political adversity, a doormat to be rolled up and put aside after they have walked into office over it, a ladder to be kicked over after -they have scaled the battlement, Notice the sublime nerve of the proposition. ‘The democratic view is that if the progressives will get into next year’s campaign in an energetic way, the new party, while it will pot begin to make the showing it made in the presidential campaign last year, will draw enough votes from the republicans to make certain the election of a democratic house.” In other words, these democratic congressmen say-: "We cannot promise you, dear friends, even the satisfaction of running second, but if you even run a bad third you will elect us, and that ought -to be glory enough for a third party. Mark too that you must be ‘energetic’ about it. Get busy, hold meetings, tap your baffl, sing songs and appeal to the people. But above all, don’t fall to nominate tickets. It helps to put us through and keep Our legs under the mahogany at Washington. In fact, you are our only hope.”