Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 December 1908 — PROMISES MUST ALL BE FULFILLED [ARTICLE]

PROMISES MUST ALL BE FULFILLED

Platform Pledges Must be Carried Out Says Roy Blue In An After-Election Discussion of Politics.

Inasmuch as Judge Thompson, Logan Wood, and others have established a precedent in setting out their views on questions of politics, I present the following observations for the consideration of the readers of the Republican. The election being over, undue enthusiasm for party success has greatly subsided; and partisanship or political bias has lost much of its keeness. For that reason this is the very best time for political discussion. Men can now look at political questions from the standpoint of loyal citizens, looking to the welfare of all the people; rather than as Republicans or Democrats, anxious alone for party success. Among the questions of the campaign just past some are worthy of our consideration now. It seems to me, that if the voters would give attention to politics between campaigns the need of large contributions, fireworks and oratorical brain-storms would be reduced to a minimum and the necessity of saving the country every four years would cease to be important Instead we wait until a few weeks before election, when party traditions and partisan prejudice obscure our thinking—then we are the prey of ill-designing politicans, of biased campaign literature and of unprincipled newspapers. It is indeed hard to keep the head clear and the judgment firm under such conditions. For a number of years, the question of the election of United States senators by a direct vote has been discussed. Some state legislatures, I think, have passed resolutions in its favor and various other steps have been taken looking to such a change. I think it safe to state, that before the campaign opened, had the proposition been put to the people ninety per cent of the voters would have given it favorable indorsement. It is a thing we have all wanted. It is the American way. The present method of election is undemocratic — a survival of the extreme centralized plan of government proposed by Alexander Hamilton before the constitutional convention in 1787. It is the product of a compromise between the democratic and undemocratic elements in that convention. The dem- | ocratic element insisted on the election of all national law makers by direct vote and the followers of Hamilton urged the opposite—hence the compromise that gave us direct vote as to members of the House and indirect as to senators. We were glad to get the compromise at that time. The Republican convention had the above question before it last June and turned it down. The reason is too evident for discussion. The splendid nominee of that convention felt it his duty to say something about the missing plank in his speech of acceptance. “Personally I favor it but it is hardly an issue in this campaign.” Why mention it? Simply for the reason that he knew that it was the will of the people that senators should stand before the voters for election and to whom they would be responsible. I understand that the first step to achieve this / great reform would be a constitutional amend ment; but if the people want it they ought to have it, else that principal of “government of and by and for the people” is a dead one.

A republican, however, can say, “there were greater things at stake.” Admitting that, the very fact that the republican convention Ignored the people’s wish in that respect and only adopted a plank favoring tariff revision and postal savings banks, after being driven to it for eight years; and taking no advanced stand upon any other question (unless It was that of injunctions which didn't amount to anything) shows the tendency of our party to go counter to the will of the people. Already we are speaking of the progressive element in the republican party, with which we associate the names of LaFollette, Beveridge, Cummins, Curtis and many others. Opposed are “standpatters”—Cannon, Sherman, the Standard Oil Senators, etc. Congressman Crumpacker was reelected and the people knew he favored a real revision of the tariff. Charles B. Landis (on the fence but inclined to be a “standpatter”) was defeated. Are these “signs of the times?” Mr. Crumpacker had a conference with the President the other day in which he told Mr. Rossevelt that the people were really in earnest about tariff revision and that he favored revision “down—not up.” Presidentelect Taft says the platform pledges must be kept; but there ston must be kept; but there stands Uncle Joe in the House and he says “he’ll show ’em,” and over the other way stands a conservative senate —(Elkins, Foraker, Aldrich, Depew, Platt, Hale, Burrows.) Previous to the Chicago convention it was the boast of party leaders that Roosevelt might dictate the nominee but that he could not write the platform. All- of which meant that a check should be placed on the reform tendencies of this administration; and that the rebuke should be sufficiently forcible to deter the coming adminht-ation from a like course. Ex-Governor Durbin, now mentioned as republican state chairman to succeed Goodrich, had a ve y sensible article in a recent publication of the Indianapolis Star in which he said that the party was placing itself in the position of being forced to take the right course; and cites the defeat of republican congressional candidates, as a result of this attitude. That warning ought to be a sufficient index as to what may happen, in four years, to the national ticket if the party persists in its “Fabian" policy. A party cannot perpetuate itself wholly on past achievements; it must measure up to the demands growing out of our complex industrial life. I am not blind to the great 'strides towards better things under the leadership of Roosevelt; but all the e gains were made with almost if not as strong, opposition from his own party as from the democrats., The republican party has been the party of construction for nearly fifty years; it has been the aggressive party. If it expects to retain leadership it must be, even more aggressive because the people are demanding remedial legislation as a proper function of government as opposed to the government that merely plays the big policeman and protects Its people from foreign invasion.

ROY BLUE.