OCR Text |
Show INSURGENCY COMMENDED. Papers representing the forces opposed to insurgency within the Republican ranks are branding insurgents as anarchists and are endeavoring en-deavoring to kill the 'cause by fastening to it an odious name, but the Wall Street Journal, the leading financial paper in the United States, rejects this unfair method of attack and in an editorial on September 20, says: "A few years hence and we shall find ourselves wondering why the attitude of the progressive section of the Republican party excited ex-cited such intense bitterness. There is nothing immoral in insurgency such as that of a Dolliver or a Fowler, although to judge by the New York 'Sun' and other worshipers of the vested interests, some wrong has been inflicted when one section of a party grows strong enough to enforce its views upon the rest. "This is the normal working of party government, and in no other self-governing country in the world would the insurgent be abused like a pickpocket, irrespective of whether the changes he desired were wise or not. Insurgency obtains in any democratic condition, and the name merely begs the question. We are a nation of insurgents, and if ve are to continue to hand on the traditions of the embattled farmers of Lexington, most sensible people will believe that the evidence of national virility afforded thereby is well worth the sacrifice of Mr. Cannon's much -loved job, or even of the services of a number of politicians who must pass into private life. ! "Our whele national life is insurgent. There is an insurgent I element which keeps Wall Street clean. Some insurgents terrified I the 'regulars' and 'stand-patters' of 1905 by an attack upon financial j methods of a kind not easy to characterize politely.. That insurgency changed the government of Wall Street. Out of its consequences , there arose a party conservative but progressive, independent but loyal, which has been able in the past five years to shape the policy j of the financial center to the great advantage of the whole country. 'We are all of us a great deal too scared of names, most of which mean rather less than nothing.. Anybody who wants to take j the hand of privilege out of the public pocket is called an 'agitator,' j and told that he is undermining the conditons of business. The sym- j pathie3 of this newspaper are essentially conservative, but there are I certain phases of 'business' which it would gladly see undermined j with a stick of moral dynamite. We would even undergo the terrible j peril of being called an insurgent therefor. j "What is wanted and needed is the most direct expression of pub lic opinion, if the popular will is to prevail as it ought to prevail. If insurgency will test the old shibboleths and cast new light upon ! new problems, we, for our part, are humbly grateful. The moral gain j even before the election is beyond price, and the interruption of a certain kind of 'business' seems to us to be a trifle to pay for such an advantage." |