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Show m The Remedy Worse Than The Disease Jfl COLONEL J. M. INGERSOLL of Pocatollo, JIB Idaho, is sanguine in the belief that the only jjH way the Republicans can win next year is to nom- 1H inate Colonel Roosevelt and Hiram Johnson or IH California for presidential candidates. We do not H doubt Colonel Ingersoll's sincerity in the least, -H but his proposition is very like our law here in jiH Utah which gives a convicted felon the choice bo- H tween being hanged or shot, except that the Re- publican party has not yet been convicted. IH But what assurance can Colonel Ingersoll give iH that the Republican party could win even with !H those daughty leaders? And with them at the M head of the ticket would not the question, "When lM is the Republican party not the Republican Party?" be a pertinent one. How long since either ' the colonel or the governor has been a Republl- M can? The colonel has been very active of late. M He began about three months ago by getting a M page interview printed in the New York Times, iM the substance of which was that because of his jH course during the past three or four years he ' was so far as politics is concerned, much like "the M man without a country," but did not know how the tH men who supported him in 1912 could be dealt IH with in order to secure their support, which was M easily interpreted to mean that he hoped they H would make such a rumpus that to conciliate them H the national republican convention would, next jH summer, be willing to nominate him. Since then H the colonel has been especially active in denounc- H ing the party in power, for sins of omission and iM commission. And so in the natural course of jH things it is not at all surprising to see Colonel In- M gersoll start out with his ultimatum. When that ul- jH timatum is analyzed it is simply this: Of course, JM Colonel Roosevelt, three years ago, in a most H shameless, dishonorable and dishonest manner, H betrayed you, tried by a brazen trick to defeat H you in convention, and, failing in that, had him- H self nominated that he might bring defeat to the 'H party that had so honored him, but his vanity, 'H egotism, and ambition are so monstrous; his H sense of gratitude and his sense of shame are so H utterly deficient, that he has started his dupes out )H to proclaim that ho must next year be the candi- ,H date of the party he betrayed and defeated, or H he will defeat it again. That is all there is in jH Colonel Ingersoll's proposition. IH His proposition might have been copied from iH the pronunciamento of either of the bandits who H has been raising hades in distressed Mexico dur- H ing the past four years. There is in it no differ- H once in either principle or patriotism from the H very worst that has come up from Mexico. But H Colonel Ingersoll, like his principal, forgets one jH thing: Could he be able to obtain the nomination iH he would suffer ignominous defeat. In 1912 he jH lead out of the Republican party a faction suffi- lH ciently large to secure the election of an opposl- jH tion minority candidate. Could he obtain the nom- jH inatlon next year that would drive out the main jH body of self-respectful Republicans who would H sooner vote for the most ultra Democrat in the B world than for him? M Milton pictures the fallen angel standing on fl "the burning lake" spitting liquid fire and rub- H bing that part of his anatomy that struck after the nine days fall, gaspingly saying: "I would H rather reign in hell than serve in heaven." That H was a good description of the forces that are urg- H ing Roosevelt on, but they do not count for the M colonel's reign is over and if he is suffering any H hell, it is in his own heart. |
