Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 June 1912 — COL ROOSEVELT TO HEAD NEW PARTY [ARTICLE]

COL ROOSEVELT TO HEAD NEW PARTY

Accepts Tentative Nomination if Test Shows Sentiment : for Call. OUTLINES POSITION IN .TALK Asks Support of All People Who Believe in Doctrines He Enunciates —Declares Fight Is for Rule by the People. Chicago.—Colonel Roosevelt delivered the keynote speech Saturday night at an informal mass convention of progxessive Republicans, held In Orchestra hall, in which he definitely severed his relations with the present Republican party. He said he would accept the candidacy for the presidency if at the delegate convention to be held later it was determined that he was to lead the fight. He urged that men, regardless of present party affiliations, who believe in the doctrines he enunciates shall join in the cause. The new party which the colonel contemplates will be the progressive parity, and it will combine all men of all sections who are in sympathy with, the movement.. Speech of Roosevelt. In his speech, Colonel Roosevelt s said, among other things: - “Gentlemen,- I thank you for your nomination, and in you I recognize the lawfully elected delegates to the Republican convention who represent the overwhelming majority of the voters who took part in the Republican primaries prior to the convention, and whS -1 represent the wish of the majority of the lawfully elected members of the convention. I accept the nomination subject to but one condition. "This has now become a contest which cannot be settled merely along the old party lines. The principles that are at stake are as broad and as deep as the foundations of our democracy itself. They are in no sense sectional. They should appeal to all honest citizens, east and west, north and south; they should appeal to all right thinking men, whether Republicans or Democrats, without regard to their previous par4y affiliations. “I feel the time has come when not only all men who believe in progressive principles, but all men who believe in those elementary maxims of Public and private morality which must every form of successful free government, should join in one movement.

Suggests Mass Convention. ‘‘Therefore' I ask you to go to your several homes to find out the sentiment of the people at home, and then again to come together, I suggest by mass convention, to nominate for the presidency a progressive candidate on a progressive platform—a candidate ana a platform that will enable us to appeal to northerner and southerner, easterner and westerner, Republican and Democrat alike, in the name of our common American citizenship. “If you wish me to make the fight I will make it, even if only one state should support me. The only condition I impose is that you shall feel entirely free when you come together to substitute any other man in my place if you deem it better for the movement, and in such case I will give him my heartiest support. Fight Is for Rule by People. “As for the principles for which I stand, I have set them forth fully in the many speeches I have made during the last four months, while making hn active contest for the nomination which I won, and out of which I have been cheated by the men who feared to see these principles, reduced to action. f

“Fundamentally, these principles are, first, that the people have the right to rule themselves, and can do so better than any outsiders can rule them; and, second, that it is their duty so to rule in a spirit of Justice toward every man and every woman within our borders, and to use the government so far as possible as an instrument for obtainng not merely political, but industrial, justice. We do not 3tand for these principles as mere abstractions any more than we stand for honesty and fair play as mere abstractions. “For Honesty and Fair Play.” “We seek to apply them practically in .every relation of life where we have power. We stand for honesty and fair play. “I hold that we are performing a high duty in inaugurating this movement, for the permanent success of practices such as have obtained in the! fraudulent convention that has Just closed its sittings would meah the downfall of this republic; and we are performing the most patrioticsof duties when we set our faces like flint igaipst such wrong.”