"We c(ont fC(vowwk< baT W« V« en ^ ^:>^'^'^\o^ ^<:r^>€tr^^ "We don't know where we're going but we're on the way" A DELIRIOUS EXCURSION We shall have arrayed against us in the com- ing campaign our ancient and hereditary enemy, the Democratic Party. In addition we shall be called upon to contend with some former associ- ates who have concluded to abandon their amiable custom of firing upon the flag they have been fol- lowing in order that they may engage in the more honorable, but no more effectual, occupa- tion of assaulting it from the front. For the next few months our ears are to be filled with the voice of the malcontent, strident and many- keyed, calling, upon the people to forsake the tried and beaten paths of constitutional govern- ment, along which they have walked with sure feet for more than a century, and enter upon a personally conducted pilgrimage through the political wilderness to a promised land as sha- dowy and unsubstantial as a desert mirage. The advance apettts of this delirious excursion iarried a few days at Chicago, long enough to pool their individual grievances, visions, and vagaries in a bewildering farrago of impractical political nostrums such as never before has been collected at one time outside the violent wards of a madhouse. And thus the so-called Progressive Party was born, its sole excuse for existence being the unfounded claim that its nominee for the Presidency was defeated for a like nomination by stolen votes at the Republi- can convention. I can not, of course, take the time to discuss this claim in detail and i>oint out its utter and reckless falsity. The overwhelming majority of the national committee, the credentials com- mittee, and the tribunal of ultimate appeal, the convention itself, after the most thorough and patient consideration. decided, and fairly decided, against this contention. Of the dele- gates elected for Mr. Taft, 238 were contested. Of these contests. ItM were rejected as wholly E 765 .S96 Copy 1 without merit. Mr. Roosevelt's own friends on the national committee joining in the decision, Mr. Roosevelt himself, although acquescing in the filing of contests against 24 Alabama de- legates, openly stated, after the national com- mittee had unanimously seated 22 of them, that he had only counted on 2 delegates for himself and exhibited a list in which 22 were conceded to President Taft. Why were these 22 and the remainder of the 164 confessedly frivolous contests instituted? The Washington Times, a Munsey newspaper, and an ardent supporter of Mr. Roosevelt, in- genuously furnished the explanation, namely — and I quote the exact statement : "I'or psychological effect, as a move in practical politics, it was nec^ssarj^ for the Roosevelt people to start contests in these early Taft selections, in order that a tabu- lation of delegate strength could be put out that would show Roosevelt holding a good hand." Larceny for "psychological effect" is some- thing quite new in the history of penology. In other words, more than two-thirds of all the contests which were instituted were known to be fraudulent from the beginning. Though in- stituted for "psychological effect." they were ai>parently continued before the national com- mittee for more practical reasons. It is dif- ficult to imagine a more indecent attempt to dis- honestly deprive duly elected delegates of their seats and secure unelected Roosevelt dele- gates in th^ir places. In view of this conceded attempt to steal 164 of the delegates, it might not be unreasonable to require something more than the mere assertion of the unsuccessful free- booter to demonstrate the merit of the remaining 74 contests. It irould he a strange rule of evidence which iiouJd require us to accept the testimony of a hucfancerinf/ psychologist who confesses to an attcnipl to purloin the larger portion of an hon- est man's property as conclusive evidence of the psychologist's title to the remainder of the honcxt man's possessions. C? ! There never has been in all history a more uniuter presents issues of more serious moment to the American people than any they have con- fronted since the grave questions which immedi- ately preceded and accompanied the Civil War. The overshadowing question then was whether the Union, under the Constitution, could be Ijerpetuated ; that which confronts us to-day is whether the Constitution itself, and the Gov- ernment which the Constitution established, shall be preserved — a question of eerty would be a mean- ingless platitude. It stands for the settled rule of impersonal government, as opposed to the shifty opportunism of personal manipulation ; for the liberty and order of general law, as against the tyranny of special edicts of chang- ing men. It plants itself upon the impregnable ramparts of the Constitution and. solemnly pro- testing against any subversion of the terms ol that great compact by the arrogant and revolu- tionary process of amendment by misconstruc- tion, appeals from the midsummer madness of that portion of the people which can be fooled all the time to the sober second thought of the great body of the American electorate w^ho will i-ender judgment in November. — From speech oj Senator George Sutherland, of Utah, notifyinf) Vice-President Sherman, of his nomination. Confrressional Record, Second Sess., 626 Con- f/ress, p. 12766. HBRARV OF CONGRESS 013 982 442 8