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Show H Col. Ingersoll And The Progressives M , IN answer to what this journal said of Col. H James M. Ingersoll, the Progressive leader of H !' Idaho, his organ, the Pocatello Chronicle, ex- H plains at length the colonel's position, the status M of his party and the hopes that he and his party H are nursing. After stating his belief in the need M of placing the nation in a position to defend H itself, against attack, and stating that our great m interests are industrial, commercial and finan- M cial, that the greatest business in the country is M the political interest of the government that B "collects and blows in over a billion dollars an- K nually of the people's money, the colonel's paper W makes him say: ml "I was for Col. Roosevelt and Governor John- ' son in 1912, and I am still for these great lead- ers in 191G. Because they. are right now fighting H for a fair, square deal policy in our economic H affairs; and because they are sincere, and have H the ability, the experience, and the moral and M physical courage to fight in all places, in season H and out of season, for an absolutely fair and H square deal economic policy, and the reforms in H our laws that In any way tend to regulate or ef- H feet our very important and complicated private H and public economic affairs. Reforms that we H are right now, and have been, hi very great need H 4 of, for lo, these many years. H i "We are still monopoly ridden, and will be H, until after our fake interstate commerce laws H ; are reformed to prevent the Standard Oil and H . numerous other large monopolistic combines H n " "from ffecUrltig special shlpp"irig" faors73rawbacks" H ' and rates not granted their competitors in pro- H ,, duction and trade, and to fix prices arbitrarly to H 1 monopolize production and trade by controlling Hj the railroads and other transportation lines H' through interlocking stock ownership or inter- Hjj locking directorates or holding companies. Hi' "This piratical policy that permits the above Hf greedy monopolistic combines to take all they H want, from the public without any sense of jus- H i tice or regard for the right of others, should be Ht immediately eliminated from our interstate com- Hh merce laws. H " "I believe in big business, the bigger the bet- H ter, but I am opposed to the big producers con- H , trolling the production by controlling the avenues H of public distribution and trade. H "It is as morally wrong to allow the trade H, l monopolies to control the public railways as it Hf- - would be to allow these monopolies to control Ht . our public roadways, and a thousand times more H J, , harmful. il "Our high cost of living is the result of high taxes and monopoly in production, transportation and trade in the necessaries of human life. "After the monopolies and high taxes had doubled the cost of living, the laborers were I1 " compelled to strike and fight, and fight and strike for an increase in wages to be able to live and keep their families from starving. u "A new tariff will not make much difference H to the laborers or the general public while the H monopolies are allowed to limit production and H ) j double the cost of living, by controlling distribu- H J I LfctKmyftffd tthjtrado In the necessaries of human "Standard Oil and other monopolies should be taughttOjrtJjj fair and Just in a fv tliingsbefore they makeftny inore noise about(the'lF cfiarify. "YojEi know, the new interstate commerce laws adopted by the Democrats! have nullified the littlegood there was left in, the old. 'laws after that "rule of reason" decision by the supreme su-preme court in the Standard Ofl and tobacco trust cases. , $ "Our -anti-trust, anti-monopoly, interstate commerce com-merce laws amount to very little now aside from paying ten thousand dollars and expenses per year to each commissioner, most of whom are deserving Democrats (who like their "Republican predecessors, have been doing for the past thirty years), drawing their $10,000 a year and their expenses and making great pretentions and long-winded long-winded reports, that nobody ever reads while they permit the very things the laws were originally orig-inally supposed to prohibit. So you see we need the Progressive party more right now than ever before. "Those who pretend to believe that the Progressive Pro-gressive party is dead, should remember that our party is today many thousand times stronger than it was in 1911, the year before the 1912 campaign. cam-paign. "In 1911 there were only a dozen or more insurgent in-surgent congressmen and a few scattering voters without a party organization. "Now we have a party organization and from two to four million enthusiastic voters. "We are now in a position to do some real good work, by planning to elect Col. Roosevelt and Govornor Johnson on an independent Progressive Pro-gressive ticket; or by combining with the Republicans Re-publicans to make the election of the above men absolutely certain. "Of course we know the Republicans will be eliminate Taft-Cannon-Penrose-Barnes-Standard Oil Foraker of Ohio, Apostle Smoot of Utah, and a dozen or more other party bosses. But if this latter plan is defeated by the bosses and it takes another beating like the one in 1912 to put the above notorious bosses out of business, we should prepare to hand it to them, next year. "Of course wo kno wthe Republicans will be beaten to a frazzler again without the Progressive vote, and that Col. Roosevelt and Governor Johnson John-son are the only men that can swing the full Progressive vote to the Republican ticket. "The election in 1912 proved that the independent inde-pendent Progressive voters outside of Vermont and Utah are for Col. Roosovelt and Governor Johnson." To a gentleman who has watched the career of Theodore Roosevelt since he landed in New York after his African advertisement, and who still thinks the said Roosevelt is an honest man, it is not much use to try to change his mind. Roosevelt sprang into the arena and began to insist that some wholesale reforms must be accomplished. ac-complished. The unfortunate feature to him of that arraignment was that they had all existed during the seven years that he was president of -the United Staterttird UatTnever awakeried"a"pro- test from him or caused him to lose an hour's sleep. His only success that year was in causing the defeat, in New York, of the party that had showered honors and emoluments beyond estimation esti-mation upon him. That defeat knocked him out and he was comparatively com-paratively quiet until the next presidential election elec-tion drew near. Then with the aid of Mr. Per-kin's Per-kin's money he started a campaign. The primaries pri-maries were wide open and enough Democrats voted with the ruff-scuff that were shouting for him to give him a delegation in the Chicago Republican Re-publican convention. There he and his friends tried to change an immemorial rule, to have no one vote against whom contests were pending and then filed bogus contests against enough delegates del-egates to give his delegates the majority. Failing Fail-ing in the intended swindle, squealing, ho bolted the convention, and then had a bolting convention conven-tion called and himself nominated. He made the campaign with the absolute knowledge that he could not be elected and that all his efforts could have no possible culmination than to defeat de-feat the party that had so honored him and elected president a gentleman who in an extreme degree professed the principles which he, Roosevelt, Roose-velt, had fought all his life. igthThat settled his status in reg&rdAto integrity wpf all level-headed men of air parties Honest Ropjiiblicans bewailed thNQ election of Mr. Wilson.Tlio'y predicted whatf wouldffollow. Had the war in Europe been avoided the Country with all its wealth would have been prostrate today; to-day; they." would contemplate four yeara.'more of Democratic rul as being in the nature of a political geological period that is a general wip- ing out of both progress and prosperity. But every honest Republican and the great majority are honest, would vote direct for Mr Wilson were it necessary to defeat Theodore Rooseyjplt.jfor they neither believe in his integrity nor his solid judgment to handle wisely the policies which should govern during the coming five years. Coming down to Col. Ingersoll's "confession of faith" how much is there in it? He wants big business but wants to crush all monopolies. Is not all big business more or less a monopoly? A has nothing but his brains and hands and B has the brains and hands and $100,- l, J 000 in business, can A successfully compete with B? Is not the latent idea in the colonel's soul that in some way B should be made to divide with A that they might have an equal chance? He thinks the tyranny of the monopolies is what has caused the low price of labor and the high cost of living. Does he know of any other country where labor is as well rewarded as in this country? Has he never learned that the I cost of living is always regulated by the amount I of money in circulation in a country? There 1 are monopolies in China, but while there are four times as many mouths to feed there as there are in our country, food costs only one-tenth one-tenth of what it does here. The colonel thinks a new tariff will not make much difference. Has he ever known a free trade administra- 9 tion to fail in smashing business and depleting H the country of money; has he ever known of W any country that has progressed as this coun- jj try has under a progressive tariff? Then really what is there in Col. Ingersoll's 8 platform except the cry of the outs against the ins and an appeal to the discontent of the country coun-try to strike for an impossible something and an appeal to every blatherskite who would, if he could, eat bread that he never earned? The strength of the "insurgents" and what the colonel says of their numbers reminds one of what Edmund Burke said long ago, to the effect that though "some" twenty grasshoppers" in" concert were making a great noise in England while the great English oxen were quietly chewing their cuds in silence, that did not prove that all the life in the fields was in the grasshoppers. |
