Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1912 — Page 1 Advertisements Column 3 [ADVERTISEMENT]

Progressive Party News. ** [Advertisment] r

THOUGHTS ON THE COLONEL. By George Ade Here are a few random observations concerning the new Progressive party and its candidate for President. It 1 were picking out a roommate I might prefer Mr. Taft to the Colonel, because with Mr. Taft I would have a better chance of putting up the curtains and arranging the pictures to suit myself. In selecting a President to go up to Washington, representing my interests and coping with the shaggy wolves of practical pol i tics, 1 pre fer the col ohel.

The new party has been singing at all of its meetings. Possibly you can remember when the crowd sang at a Republican rally. If I tried to sing in the Barnes choir this year, 1 believe 1 w-ould choke.

Up at Chicago in June they told us, very plainly “We are going to drive him out of the party.” They got theij- wish and yet they don’t seem happy.

A good many persons, especially those who wear overshoes in the summer time, object to the Colonel because he is scrappy and assertive. If the Colonel didn’t happen to be just what he is, the sextons who make a business of embalming reformers would have la !, l him away twenty years ago. They have been trying to get something on him ever since he bobbed up as Police Commissioner in NewYork City. About all that they have proved to date Is that when he gets very mad he is not polite. The deluge which swept away the Republican Congress and undermined the Republican Senate and littered the landscape with defunct standpatters, gathered itself while the Colonel was in Africa, beyond the reach of the mall or the telegraph. If he went back to Africa tomorrow and remained for ten years, the voters at home would continue to repudiate the politicians who broke their promises. Yet they say it is a “one man movement.”

A good many of the old regulars' in Washington used to believe that a really honest man wore a white necktie and would give two tens for a five. They hate the with a seething hatred because he is a foxy politician, whereas, in order to preserve the traditions of the lobby, he should proven his honesty by engaging Murray Crane as a guide. The Colonel’s good ship was hardly beyond Sandy Hook when a little company of sure-thing operatives 'might have been seen bearing down .on the White House. They shook hands with the new Superintendent and told him they knew his brother, and then they said they would show him how the game was really played. A few moments later they were putting cards up their sleeves, holding them in their lap and passing them under the table. One player leaned ponderously on the table and tried to pla<y fair with the hand they had dealt him. His horrified friends looked in at the window and exclaimed, “Well, what do you know aboqt that? After we have been warning him for three years to beware of the whole outfit!” ’ The Progressive party has had the courage to declare promptly and without faltering, for certain inevitable changes in our scheme of government, all founded on common sense and fair play. You will seldom meet in the North an old man ready to admit that he favored slavery fifty years ago. Eyen the free silver hosts have strange.y vanished from the earth. Twenty years from now you will, have some difficulty in spotting the man who raved against the Progressive platform in 1912.

A good many people who admire Mr. Wilson as a scholar and orator and high-toned gentleman, sincerely believe that he will play hob if he ever succeeds in giving us a tariff i for revenue only. It is true that several persons who formerly had office have enlisted as members of the Progressive Party. All sorts of people try to attach themselves to a winning cause. But the movement is not dominated by professional officeholders, and, come to think of it, we haven’t in our ranks nearly as many ex-holders of office as the Republican machine organization will have this time next year. They say the Colonel wants to be king. Nonsense. - Why should he