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Show H LEST WE FORGET. '- ' R j Senator Albert B. Cummins, of Iowa, was a candidate for the M J "Republican nomination for president in the recent primary campaign. 1 ; He occupied a peculiarly strong strategical position because of his M : j long record as a Progressive on the one hand and his equally clear H ' j record for party regularity on the other hand. When it began to 1 j appear that there would he a deadlock in the convention, that the H , bosses by dishonest control of the party machinery would prevent the l nomination of Roosevelt and that the nomination of Taft would mean H the destruction of the party, the strongest compromise candidate f suggested was Senator Cummins. ' Hi'' , Thcro Avas o taint on his progressivism. He had been one of I1 ihQ loaders o the little band which in the senate had made a gallant H , - fight and frustrated the betrayal of the people bv the Taft adminis- . ;' j ation- M the convention could have been given an honest noraina-Hu noraina-Hu bon and it were necessary that a compromise candidate be named H 1 Senator Cummins would undoubtedly have been the man For not' m , withstanding his progressivism, he had heen such a 'loyal party man m j and he had so withheld himself from relations with the more radical H , movements that the state bosses who controlled the Torv delegations H would have been glad to have taken him as a candidate'to save their U 1 organizations from destmction. B i . Tnfcri, they did offer the nomination to-him. Senator Cummins m v j was not in Chicago. He was in Washington attending to his business 0.1 as a.natlnQl legislator. Judge A. M. Stevens, now the Progressive I( , nominee for governor of Iowa, had charge of Senator Cummins' in-, in-, tcrcsta in the convention and kepfrihe senator informed on the situa-, situa-, , tion. Judge Stevens informed Senator Cummins that the convention was not honestly constituted and that any nomination bestowed bv ! J Upld ber tf nted hereupon Senator Cummins not only declined R I ' r " i "If t0 tak him P -mpromise oand d te Mil lUi T ' t ldrC" hiS candidttV-. ich been promot d ov ftj delegates from his om state. - , After the nomination of Taft had 'been consummated, Senator m f Cummins declined to make any statement except that he still bo , heved the Republican party to bo basically progressive and basically Iionest and that he did not sec the necessity of a new party. His declaration was advertised by the Taft forces as a promise to support the president. Senator Cummins refused to be more definite. He said he would examine the testimony in the contested seats and ascertain as-certain whether or not President Taft had been honestly nominated. Senator Cummins is one of the ablest lawyers of the American : bar. Before going into politics and becoming a progressive he had been a highly paid attorney, his services being sought by railroads and other great corporations. By many he is considered the greatest lawyer in the United States senate. He certainly knows the value of evidence. H he had any predispositions in the case, they were for a clean bill for the Taft nomination. For Senator Cummins has an ingrained habit of regularity. He did not then and he docs not now believe in the necessity of a third party as a permanent factor. He chose to remain a Republican. His natural hope was to be able to support his partj' nominee for president. It was not until Tuesday of last week that Senator Cummins declared de-clared himself on the candidates for president. And he declared himself for Roosevelt. He still proclaimed his allegiance to the Republican Re-publican party. But he said he will vote for Roosevelt because he believes him to have been the choice of the Republican party. This is Senator Cummins' verdict: The complaisant committee and, following them, the convention, deliberately delib-erately Beated Taft delegates from Washington, California, Arizona and Texas who had no shadow of tltlo to scats In the convention. I apeak of those Btatoe because I have examined the record as to thom and have reached reach-ed a conclusion after tho moat careful Btudy and reflection. And thus the will of a tremendous majority was defeated by tho machinations of a committee. Senator Cummins' declaration makes it interesting and important impor-tant to review the history of the contests in the four states which he names. J- The fourteen Washington delegates were stolen for Mr. Taft by the Washington state machine, which is managed by Beverly W. Coiner and Richard Achilles Ballinger. Richard had been secretary of the interior under President Taft and had precipitafed the Alaskan Alas-kan coal land scandal. Beverly was rewarded on July 23, when President Taft made him United States district attorney for the western district of Washington. Coiner and Ballinger controlled twenty-one of the thirt3-nine voles in the Washington slate committee. Under their direction 145 legally elected delegates to the state convention were thrown out and Taft delegates seated. Then the convention proceeded to elect Taft delegates to the national convention. Of the 145 legally elected Roosevelt delegates that had been thrown out of the state convention to give the control to the Taft forces, 121 were from Kings count', where they had been elected at a primary participated in by 10,000 Republican voters. The vote ran 8 for Roosevelt to 1 for Taft. The 121 fraudulent Taft delegates who took the Kings county scats in the state convention were picked by twelve members of the county committee of which the total membership mem-bership is more than 300. In Asotin county the county convention elected six Roosevelt delegates who were among the 145 thrown out by the Ballinger and Coiner machine. Their places were filled by six Taft men selected by three of the eleven members of the county committee.! The ten Roosevelt delegates elected by the Chelan 'county convention con-vention were thrown out to make way for Taft men chosen by a minority of the county committee at a secret meeting. The eight Mason county Roosevelt delegates were ' chosen by eleven of the twentyonc members of the county committee. Their places were taken by Taft delegates selected by two of the twentyonc twenty-onc members. Before these 145 legally elected Roosevelt delegates were thrown out the Roosevelt forces had 457 of the 668 delegates and controlled the convention. By throwing out these 145 and seating Taft delegates dele-gates in their place, the Taft forces gained control and sent fourteen fraudulent delegates to the national convention instructed for Taft. The theft of the two California delegates for Taft was a simpler matter. The state law provided for the election of delegates by the state at large. President Taft accepted the terms of the law over his own signature, in a telegram from the White House dated March 26. Colonel Roosevelt carried the state by more than 76,000 majority. major-ity. The only pretext of the Taft bosses for defying the California law and violating President Taft's solemn pledge was the unproven claim that in the fourth district of California more voles had been cast for the twenty-six Taft delegatcs-at-large than for the twenty-six twenty-six Roosevelt delegates. On this unproven claim the national com-mitce com-mitce stole two of the twenty-six delegates-at-large. There was absolutely ab-solutely no way of knowing how many votes had been cast in the fourth district, as no tabulation had been made and none was possible, pos-sible, the lines of the district cutting through fourteen voting precincts. pre-cincts. ' In Arizona Roosevelt had a majority of 6 in the stale convention. So the Taft committee unseated the st went' Maricopa county delegates, dele-gates, who had been elected by a vote of 951 to 11 for the Taft candidates. can-didates. The twenty Taft men thus fraudulently seated gave the control of the convention to Taft and elected six fraudulent delegates dele-gates to the national convention instructed for Taft. In Texas only 27 of the 249 counties instructed for Taft. The national committee found no excuse for unseating the Roosevelt delegates del-egates except that they "didn't represent public opinion." The contests con-tests were based on "moral" grounds. In these four states alone there were forty-eight delegates stolen for Taft. If the rightful Roosevelt delegates had been seated, Taft would have been in a hopeless minority. That the forty-eight delegates were stolen is the verdict of Albert Al-bert B. Cummins, Republican. He does not indorse all the instrumentalities instru-mentalities favored by the Progressive party. He does indorse the leadership of Roosevelt in the movement for human welfare. But it is not on that ground that Cummins declares for Roosevelt? nad he found that Taft had been honestly nominated, he would have been for him as the candidate of the Republican party. On examination of the testimony in the four states here reviewed Senator Cummins finds that Roosevelt was the choice of the Republican party and that the nomination was stolen from him and given to Taft. The Progressive movement has passed beyond the single question ques-tion of the honesty of Mr. Taft's nomination. The third partv was founded on the doctrine. "Thou shall not steal"; but the broad principles of human welfare for which it stands havelong since overshadowed over-shadowed the crime at Chicago. Nevertheless, it is well to recall, as Senator Cummins docs, the method by which Mr. Taft got his nomination. nom-ination. And the cases are here reviewed "lest we forget." We arc indebted to the North American for the foregoing irrefutable irre-futable statement on the Chicago political scandal and Senator Cummins' Cum-mins' forced conclusion that the Taft nomination was obtained by theft. |