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Show CAMPAIGN OF THE PROGRESSIVES. Less, than a month has passed since Roosevelt addressed the Ohio constitutional convention and declared his belief in the principles prin-ciples for which the progressives contend, says the Los Angeles Tribune. It lacks a day-of being three weeks since Roosevelt, responding re-sponding to the appeal' of tho governors, gaVeMhe people assur ance that if they desired him again to be their leader he would not refuse to serve them. It was in that response that he declared in favor of presidential preference primaries. ' He expressed ths hope that in every stntcl as far as possible, tli1 people would be given the right and power themselves to name the presidential nominees. It is to Taft's lasting shame that, refusing to accept that manly challenge, he has turned from tlie 'people and flung himself into the. arms of the politicians, begging them to nominate him whether the people want him or not. Throughout the., republic the issue thus created has come to subordinate all other issues. The progressives are making their campaign for Roosevelt's nomination on the issue that the people are fit to rule and that they should be given the power to rule. The reactionary forces that support Taft deny, that the people are fit to rule and refuse, to give them power to rule. They do not express ex-press that denial in terms, bift they give it full expression by and through their acts. In every state where they control the organization organiza-tion of the Republican party they have resisted the institution of presidential preference primaries they have refused to allow the people to express their choice among the opposing candidates. How eloquently that refusal speaks their fear of thettpeople! IIow clearly clear-ly it rcvenls their conviction that were the people permitted to choose as between. Taft and Roosevelt they would choose Roosevelt and reject Taft! The campaign of the progressives is an assertion of tho sovereignty sov-ereignty of the people In Ilie"g6vernment of parties as in the government gov-ernment of the state. It is a declaration of the right of the people themselves to nominate as well as elect. It would give the people power to Tula in. June as in November. As the electoral college has become' converted into a ministerial body, discharging no function func-tion save that of registering the people's will, so would the progressives pro-gressives convert the national" convention's of 'parties into instruments instru-ments declara'tory of the peopled choice, ascertained at the' polios. If the Republican party is desirous of Taft's renomination, would it not express that .desire were presidential preference primaries held? And if Taft is not the choice of the Republican party, ought he to be declared the nominee of the Republican party? Ought the Republican party to be subjected to the humiliation humilia-tion of disastrous defeat merely to satisfy the inordinate vanity of a president seeking the gratification of a renomination? Taft's nomination means Republican defeat and possibly a defeat that will mean disruption and destruction. If the Republican party is defeated de-feated under such conditions, the whole responsibilit- will rest uponthe head of the man who is resolved to ; be renominated whether his party, desires -his nomination or not. - - . . |