The conference after a two days' session issued the following statement:

declaration of party faith. Late held in Chicago. The conference was in 1912 (Dec. 14), only a month announced as "the first step toward after the election, in an address at reuniting the Republican party" with Chicago on "What is Progress in a view to "reorganizing the party Politics," Dr. Butler appeared ready along progressive lines." to accept a number of notable changes in our system of politics and government. He would still hold to written constitutions as a means of limiting the power of executives and legislatures, but he would have these constitutions more easily amended that the frame work of government might be more flexible; he would give Cabinet officers seats in both houses of Congress, to answer questions and share in debate; he would introduce the short ballot, the expert drafting of laws, the budget plan for reforming public expenditures; he would reform judicial procedure, make taxation more direct, and would seek such measures of industrial justice as would improve the social conditions "of those who live on the margin of want and prevent the injustices now existing in society"; and while he would not bring party machinery under the control of state law, he would improve nominating methods by making this machinery more responsive to public opinion.

These proposed changes were not at issue in party platforms and they were generally approved by public spirited men of all parties. While they were looked upon as marking a measure of progress, they fell far short of the Progressive party demands, and were regarded by the Progressives merely as an adroit diversion to recall seceders or to prevent further inroads on the Republican party strength. By others more favorably disposed they were taken to indicate a liberal tendency in the counsels of certain Taft Republicans toward questions of law and administration, if not toward more fundamental political reforms and problems of the day. But it was certain that President Butler's programme would not satisfy either the Progressives who had gone out, or the progressive Republicans, like Senators La Follette, Cummins and Borah, who had stayed with the party.

Conference of Progressive Republicans. On May 12 a conference of these Progressive Republicans was

At an informal conference of Republicans from 11 states held at Chicago, May 12. 1913, it was voted that it be submitted to the National Republican Committee as the opinion of those present, that a national convention of the party should be held this year at as early a date as may be practicable, pediency of changing the basis of reprefor the purpose of considering the exsentation in future conventions so that the delegates shall proportionately reppopulation, to the end that the will of resent Republican voters and not general the members of the party may be more accurately determined; also for the purpose of changing the rules relating to delegates and members of the National Committee so that primary election laws of the various states shall be recognized, and also for the purpose of making such ducting national conventions and campaigns as shall conduce to giving the utmost possible effect to the principles and policies of the party.

other changes in the methods of con

The New York State Republican Convention.-The suggestion of a national convention for the purpose of bringing about a revision of the party rules and constitution was reviewed by a more official and more representative body of Republicans a few months later. The Republican state convention of New York, under the leadership of Senator Root on Sept. 23 went on record in favor of a national convention and for a reform of the party rules. The committee on resolutions adopted the following after a spirited discussion:

We instruct the representative of the state of New York in the National Committee to urge that a national convention be called as soon as practicable, to change the party rules so as:

1. To provide that in the call for future national conventions delegates are to be chosen in each state in the manin such states. ner preferred by the Republican voters We, however, urge the continuance of the Congressional district, as the basis of representation. the national conventions shall hereafter 2. To insure that representation in be based more nearly on the Republican vote actually cast in the several states and Congressional districts, which just principle received the unanimous support of the delegation from the state of New the National Convention of York at 1908: and

3. To amend the rules relative to

Convention in 1916, that in each state which shall have provided by law for the election of all delegates to National Conventions of political parties at direct primaries, all delegates from that state shall be elected in conformity with such law; and that such call shall provide that in each state which shall have provided by law for the election of the total number of delegates to which that state is entitled, in accordance with the terms of the call issued for the convention. from the state at large, delegates shall be elected in conformity with such law and that such call provide that the delegates holding the certificates of election from the canvassing board created by state law to canvass the returns and issue a certificate of the election of delegates in a primary election, shall be placed upon the temporary roll by the National Committee.

The plan of reapportionment proposed is set forth in a resolution adopted on the 17th as follows:

Each state shall be entitled in such convention to four delegates at large; one delegate at large for each Represen: tative at large in Congress from any state; one delegate from each Congressional district: an additional delegate from each Congressional district in which the Republican vote for Republican Presidential electors in 1908, or for the Republican candidate for Congress in 1914, shall have been not less than 7.500 in such district, and that for each delegate chosen an alternate delegate shall be chosen in the same manner and at the same time to act in the event of the absence of the delegate.

Provided, however, that the above basis of representation shall not be made convention to be held in the year 1916, unless prior to Jan. 1, 1915, Republican state conventions, held under the laws of the states or called by the Republican state committees of the states, in such number of states as are entitled to cast a majority of the votes in the present Electoral College shall ratify the action of this committee in respect to determining this basis of representation.

the basis for the call for the national

Alabama
Arkansas
Florida

Republican Principles.-But the Republican party, according to the more radical of the progressive wing, in revising its convention rules has taken only the first step toward rehabilitation. Through the National Committee it has set in motion machinery which will achieve one of the chief reforms for which a national convention was urged by Senator Cummins and other Progressive Republicans, but it has defined no principles or policies nor united its factions under a common leadership. Senator Borah opposed the calling of a national convention in 1914 lest it should firally force the progressives out of the party.

Senator La Follette has affirmed that "the rank and file of the divided Republican forces can only be reunited as they are inspired to believe in the sincerity of purpose and leadership of the reorganization." The party must not compromise principle for the sake of harmony. There has been no evidence that the conservative and reactionary elements in the Republican party are disposed to accept the leadership of Senator La Follette, Senator Cummins and men of that type, nor to bind themselves to the principles and policies which those progressives who still call themselves Republicans deem essential to the "needs of the nation." It appears, therefore, that the reduced Republican party is still divided within itself and that the remnant of progressivism within the party will have to make another fight for the control of the party organization and leadership.

The Progressives on their part have The plan is expected to reduce the made more positive demurrers to the number of delegates in the next Na- arguments and efforts of the progrestional Convention to 993, the south-sive reorganizers still within the Reern states 1 sing 82 and the northern publican party who urged the reform states eight. The states affected are: of convention rules as the panacea 1912 1916 for the ills of Republicanism. They claim that the arguments of Senator Cummins and others pleading for a special convention to adopt new rules are based upon two false premises. In the first place, the Republican party did not become divided merely because its National Convention was not truly representative. It was not the unfair "rules of the game" that caused the Progressives to walk out. They knew the handicap of the rules when they entered the contest. The

Georgia
Illinois

13

24

15

18

15

12

8

28

18

58

56

Kentucky

26

25

Louisiana

20

available to the public by the legis lative bureau of the party. It was planned that the party would thus become, in a measure, an organization for research, and that the party managers might become aids in constructive legislation, to act as officials in helping to carry out constructive policies. A Progressive Service was proposed at this conference by Miss Jane Addams, to comprise several distinct lines of activity: education and publicity, for the creation of public sentiment; legislative reference, devoted to the expert drafting and presenting of bills; social and industrial justice, for the study of social wrongs and needs; conservation, for the study of our resources and their uses; cost of living, including the tariff and the trusts; popular government, embracing such subjects as the initiative, referendum, recall, suffrage, etc. All this served to indicate, in a measure, the educational work to be undertaken by the Progressive party.

real cause of complaint was the un- seven to Europe, to study the legisla seating of delegates from northern tion of other countries, to gather and western states who had been information which should be made regularly elected under the rules. It was the voting of a stolen roll, the substitution by the action of a National Committee of fraudulent delegates for those who had been legally and fairly elected. Another premise of the progressive Republicans to which the Progressives take exception is the assumption that prior to the convention of 1912 there were some 7,000,000 or 8,000,000 Republicans of like mind on important principles, with sufficient community of opinion to hold them together as a political organization. There was no such community of opinion upon a single fundamental principle between the forces of the "old guard" and the progressive Republicans while the contest was being waged within the party. Before confidence in the Republican party could be at all restored among the rank and file of the Progressives it would be necessary for Senators La Follette and Cummins and their progressive colleagues to commit the "stand pat" leaders still in control of the party to the initiative, the referendum and recall, and to a positive and radical programme of industrial reform and social justice. This is not likely to be done, and the Progressives therefore contend that there is no community of political opinion nor a similar tendency and purpose among Republicans and Progressives and that fusion and amalgamation are as likely to be obtained with the Democrats as with the Republicans. The Progressive Party.-The Progressive conference in Chicago on Dec. 10-11, 1912, was briefly reported in the last issue of the YEAR BOOK (p. 51). It was called to advise with the party committee to formulate plans, to perfect party organization and to push party propaganda. It determined: (1) to establish a permanent publicity bureau in Washington, to gather and publish information as to the form of progressive laws proposed or in force in various states, a new departure in the practice of parties but in keeping with the new party's declaration of its original purposes; and (2) to instruct its Executive Committee to send a commission of

Mr. Roosevelt addressed the conference advising a distinct organization and a forward party movement. The sentiment reflected in the conference was to the effect that the Progressive party was committed to a definite political programme; that it should not consider the abandonment of its position as a distinct party; that while it would welcome the affiliation of all who would work loyally for the party's policy, the party was not to be looked upon merely as an offshoot of the Republican party, because thousands of Democrats were among its members; and that the party should not consider amalgamation or fusion with any other political body. This policy of independent action has been affirmed in a number of state and sectional Progressive conferences during the year.

On July 2 a Progressive conference in the form of a party rally and "clam bake" was held at Newport, R. L., at the call of the Progressive National Service, which was addressed by Mr. Roosevelt. He called attention to conditions in the West Virginia coal fields as illustrating the

futility of the Democratic and Re- solve great industrial and social probpublican plans of action for the lems goes, "merely as a red herring amelioration of labor conditions and dragged across the trail to divert our the control of large combinations of people from the real issues." Again corporate interests, as indicated by he spoke of President Wilson's "new their platforms of the year before. freedom" as "a meaningless phrase, He described President Wilson's without one specific proposal for "new freedom" for competition as "the affirmative action," while it "conold license translated into terms of tains repeated, detailed and specific pleasant rhetoric." Mr. Roosevelt misrepresentations as to the Progresurged invoking the "supervisory, reg- sive position." As to state and naulatory, controlling and directing tional powers and areas of action, Mr. power of the Government" for the Roosevelt contends that the promocontrol of vast capitalistic combina- tion of the people's rights should be tions that may threaten the public the criterion for guidance. Where welfare, as the Progressives were de- these interests can best be secured by manding. He denounced certain in- | the enlargement of the rights of the junctions in West Virginia as travesties of justice. The West Virginia courts, he affirmed, had set aside laws that had been passed to remedy the evils, finding constitutional flaws and "repudiating the principle of justice on which the laws were based." Mr. Roosevelt asserted that the "Constitution belongs to the people, not the people to the Constitution; and the courts are the servants of the people precisely as all other public servants, legislative and executive alike."

Mr. Roosevelt on the Progressive Party. Mr. Roosevelt presented the cause of the Progressive party to the public in an article in the Century Magazine for October, 1913. He asserted that the Progressives were "sundered" from "the men who now control and manage the Republican party by the gulf of their actual practices"; the rank and file of the old party have no real power against the bosses. Those who are opposed to popular government within their party system are so opposed for the same reason that they oppose direct primaries, the initiative and referendum, the right of the people to control their own officials, or to oppose the judges in saying what the constitution means or what the constitution permits in the way of legislation for social and economic justice. They do not wish the people to have control of their own political and governmental machinery. They uphold the divine right of the judges to determine what the people may do under their constitution.

As to tariff revision Mr. Roosevelt looked upon it, as far as helping to

states, the Progressives would stand for state rights; where popular interests can best be promoted by the exercise of the powers of the national government, they are for national rights. The people must have direct control over their own governmental agencies. They may reasonably decide what construction is to be placed upon the constitution, a proposal that has nothing whatever to do with an ordinary case at law.

Election Results.-During the Fall there were two Congressional by-elections, one in Maine, one in West Virginia. At the special election in the Third Congressional District in Maine on Sept. 8, called to fill a vacancy caused by the death of a member, John A. Peters, the Republican candidate, was successful. He received 15,106 votes as against 14,553 votes for the Democratic candidate and 6,487 votes for the Progressive candidate. The Republican plurality was 553 as against 700 of the year before. In the Presidential election of 1912 the vote in the district stood: Wilson, 14,692; Roosevelt, 13,238; Taft, 7,159. In his campaign the Republican candidate appealed for votes on progressive principles. A by-election was held in the First District of West Virginia on Oct. 14 to fill a vacancy caused by the appointment of John W. Davis as Solicitor-General of the United States. M. M. Neely, Democrat, was elected with 14,093 votes to 11.044 for the Republican candidate, 3,717 for the Progressive, and 1,912 for the Socialist.

The general election results in November were decidedly favorable to