Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 September 1916 — AND ANOTHER PROMINENT PROGRESSIVE. [ARTICLE]

AND ANOTHER PROMINENT PROGRESSIVE.

Amos Pinchot, New York millionaire, lawyer and philanthropist who, with his brother Gifford, was one of the foremost leaders of the Progressive party, in a -letter addressed Ito Judge Samuel Seabury, declares that Wilson Seabury are the real exponents of Progressivism whom he will support in national and state campaigns. Pinchot commends Judge Seabury and declares as unequivocally sot President Wilson as he declares against Whitman and Hughes. Mr. Pinchot’s letter to Judge Seg,burv, written Saturday, follows:' \ “Dear Judge Seabury—l confess that I was not particularly surprised

to read Colonel Roosevelt’s advice to the Progressives to vote against you and for Whitman. The fact is, the colonel is merely running true to recent form.

“You stand squarely for the things the Progressive party has stood for in the past; on the whole, about as squarely as Whitman stands against them. I do not think that anybody would question this, not even the colonel. But, for quite a good while it has? been fairly clear to most of us that Roosevelt, Perkins and the steel trust, old guard group around them, have not been interested in the things which the Progressive party, stood for. In fact, they have effectually thrown, all liberalism and democracy overboard, and are now playing pure, old-fashioned Republican policies. They are, therefore, not in a position to support you. “Colonel Roosevelt steered the Progressive ship as long as the sailing wag good, but when it got into rough water he promptly changed back to the Republican crass. And, incidentally, he did not take much with him. Unlike the boy who stood on the burning deck whence all but him had fled, he took a quick jump and left behind his Progressive principles and most of the real men of the party. “It is true that the colonel says that he is obliged to desert to the standpat camp, only on account of the sudden appearance of a greater principle, a paramount issue, to-wit, ‘Americanism.’ The Union League club, Mr. Root, Mr. Taft, Mr. Bacon, Mr. Perkins, Wall street in general and the steel trust in particular, are unanimously for ‘Americanism.’ They are ‘absolutely and uncompromisingly’ in favor of the United States. This is extremely reassnr'ing, and it ought to make it clear as sunlight, that every real American’s high moral duty is to make his cross under the eagle. “But to some of us doubting Thomases, who are inclined to place a little less faith in the patriotism of Wall street and the old guard than we do in that of the average citizen, who does not feel obliged to certify his awn patriotism with such surprising vigor, the argument does not seem to be entirely closed. “To my mind there is some inconsistency in waving the America’. 1 flag with one hand and exploiting the public with the other. I would have a great deal more- faith in our exclusive proprietary, pre-election brand of Americanism if it had more support Outside'of the ranks of the machine politicians and industrial buccaneers.

“However, we should not blame Mr. Roosevelt, Mr. Perkins and those who crated a ‘paramount issue'—for we must remember that a paramount issue was obsolutely necessary under the circumstances. For them there was no escape from the. Progressive party, with its tiresome principles and undistinguished personnel, unless a paramount issue could be discovered, in favor of which the progressivism of 1012, social justice, democracy and all that sort of politically useless rot could be gracefully abandoned. “So if some one of us feel that a good deal of this so-called ‘Americanism’ is in reality not so much a paramount issue as a paramount gangplank, to get back, without loss of face, into old guard Republicanism, it is our misfortune. It would be much more pleasant for iis, who once stood by Colonel Roosevelt when he was making the people’s fight, and who know how useful he was at that time, to feel that we could stand by him now. Certainly the colonel did many a hard day’s work for tile public before he asked for his time and returned to the more comfortable quarters of wealth and privilege. Perhaps it is too much to expect a man to fight all his life on the side of democracy. “And now, we Progressives of Now York state are advised by our late chief to vote you down, and reelect Whitman, on the ground that your election would be detrimental to the paramount issue. Says the colonel and Mr. Perkins: ’To defeat Wilson (who by the way has embraced and put into execution progressive principles just as fast or a little faster than Mr. Roosevelt dropped them); we must vote against Seabury.’ •

“As to the general issue in the coming election there seems to he a pretty clear lineup. Men like yourself and Mr. Wilson on the one hand, and Hughes, Whitman, Roosevelt and Perkins on the other, embody in their attitude toward society the larger conflict between democracy and absolutism that is going on in this country. The Republicans, as a whole, stand for the idea that the country should be governed by a small group of efficient/ powerful personages, who will tell the people what to think and what to do, and make them do it. Men like President Wilson and yourself seem to me to stand for the opposite idea, that democracy after all, with all its mistakes and inefficiency,

is the wiser plan, because it allows people to think for themselves and teaches them to govern themselves, by governing themselves. “The Republicans denounce Mr. Wilson for his attitude in regard to Germany and the European war. They say, no doubt ( sincerely, that Mr. Wilson, through his leadership should have ‘molded public opinion,’ into a more aggressive attitude, irrespective of consequences; that we have been careless of our honor, and many of them go so far as to say that we should actually be in the war.

“This ashamed-of-my-country attitude is wearing to the patience of thoughtful Americans. In the first place, it is utterly astonishing that, with the whole world involved in a death struggle, the United States (trying to steer an impartial course which is naturally objectionable to every belligerent), should not have been far more, seriously affronted by the war-maddened nations than she actually has. been. Nothirtg but a very skilfull and patriotic handling of the situation by Mr. Wilson could have kept us out of most serious complications. “As a matter of fact the United States, except in the eyes of a few rather aggressive Americans, and a good many foreigners who have been blinded by the fear and suffering of the war, is looked on throughout the world as having played a wery sane and honorable part. “The saber-rattling conception of national honor that Mr. Roosevelt advances, to-wit, that it is creditable tp seize the first opportunity to physically injure any one who has in the slightest degree injured you, has no larger following among intelligent, patriotic foreigners than, it has among intelligent patriotic Americans. It is the dying idea of trial by violence—the idea that in all countries survives almost exclusively in tlvo extremes of society, the duel approving aristocrat and the street brawling ruffian. This desire to get into the • war, this willingness to involve a whole nation in disaster for the sake of some childish, un-thought-of, dog-eat-dog belief that you make other nations honor and respect you by slaughtering their citizens wholesale, "whenever there is a passable excuse, is not a growing idea. T think that Mr. Wilson and yourself have the better of Mr. Roosevelt in the argument

“The war party in the United States is also essentially a moneyed, or leisure-class party. Instinctively, the privileged class edge a country toward war, for, proverbially, war makes good places to root for truffles. As far as I have seen, rich people are practically alone in wanting the United States to go around with a chip on its shdulder. Ordinary people have too little, if any, margin above what is necessary to live, and arc too near to the realities of life to be anxious to make the sacrifices of war, or to indulge in international strutting. “If Mr. Roosevelt and his standpatters thought of the average American at all they would see that he is a poor man. They would know that he; is too busy supporting his wife and children, on a very small income, to realize that it is his moral (i. e. Republican) duty to leave his farm or his workshop, put on a uniform and take part in a row that is going on 3,000 miles or so away.

“The average American has his own duties and his own responsibilities here, at home—a living to make, people dependent on him to feed and clothe here at home. And so, in spite of tjie war party, and even of the highly righteous and Republican necessity of electing the next President, he does not want to go to war, unless it is a matter of life and death to him, and he does not want to punish Mr. Wilson for allowing him to remain at home ignobly and mind his own business. “But Colonel Roosevelt and the war party are not thinking in terms of the average man. It looks to me as if they were not thinking at all. except so far as is necessary to assure themselves that they are ‘absolutely and uncompromisingly’ in favor of America.

“I Sincerely hope and believe that every Progressive in the state who sees the necessity of an intelligent: and progressive state administration, will vote for you in the primary.”

Even ~J. Frank Hanley, the Prohibition Presidential candidate, is taking a few cracks at Hughes in his speeches. Asserting that while he would like to be President, he ;wants to put* his campaign on higher grounds than complaining about some little appointment. He also asserts that when Hughes appointed a wholesale liquor dealer as one of his confidential campaign managers, he no longer had any hesitancy about severing his relations with the Republican party.