Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1906 — REPUBLICAN POLITICS [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICAN POLITICS

Struggle For Supremacy Is Already Inaugurated. . , ■.* " 1 EOOSEVELT STILL IN THE MHO ■ 'V Ssesties of the Third Term WUI Agate fart to Be Decld ed—President Working to Control Convention Republican Factional Fight* Lend Comfort to Democrats. It is ratber early to talk about tbe nomination of a president, tvhicb will not take place until nearly two years hence, for many things may happen in that time. The good political general, however, keeps his eye on the future and prepares to upset the plans of his opponents, and a glance at the probable Bepnblican nominee is of Importance to Democrats everywhere. There are at least nine receptive Republican candidates for the presidential nomination—namely, Taft* Fairbanks, Cannon, Root, Foraker, Cummins, La Follette, Knox and Spooner. Shaw was a candidate, but by this time must see that the renomination of Cummins for governor of lowa over the Shaw protest has eliminated him from the contest. Tbe repeated official denials that President Roosevelt will be a candidate must not be taken too seriously, for, although good faith with other Republican candidates will require that the president keep his word, his notable ambition to perpetuate his policies will perhaps urge him to use the administration forces to that end. It is possible, of course, that events may force the Republican national convention to nominate Mr. Roosevelt for a third term in spite of bis protest and he may consent to run, as he did for vice president in 1900, althougb-he had explicitly pledged numerous politicians that “he would not under any circumstances be a candidate” for tbe vice presidency. General Grosvenor, who was writing letters on the spot from Philadelphia in 1900 to & New York newspaper, said, "If he is nominated it will very soon be understood that tbe game has been one in which he himself has participated, either as an organizer or as consenting to the performance.” And Grosvenor added, “It will be said of him either that he is a dishonest man or else that he did not want the place.* Mr. Roosevelt accepted the vice presidential nomination and he may accept a third term; in fact he may now be working to that end. In the event that Mr. Roosevelt discovers that a third term would be unpopular he will at least want to perpetuate bis policies. Under those circumstances the two administration candidates are Taft and Root, and as the latter has a record that will not bear the intense inspection that always accompanies the candidature for president it would appear that Taft would then be tbe candidate pushed to the front by the administration. The reformers. La Follette and Cummins, are either through Jealousy or from being too strongly opposed to the railroads not acceptable to Mr. Roosevelt, judging from the fact that be has allowed the federal officials to oppose them. The other Republican candidates— Fairbanks, Cannon, Foraker, Knox and Spooner—are not in sympathy with the president's policies, and their chances for the nomination are handicapped by their well known corporation sympathies or either past or present retention as trust attorneys. The Repubiicau nomination for president, therefore, depends upon which of the two groups—the ins or the outs —can control the convention, and a desperate struggle for supremacy is already inaugurated. Tbe administration, with its patronage and horde of officials in every state, has a vast leverage to raise the necessary majority, and that the lever will be openly or secretly worked by the president is the general belief of Republican politicians. The Democrats can watch the Republican factional fight with Interest, knowing that, however It terminates, there will be sore spots that will work to their advantage.