THE REPUBLICAN DEBACLE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13888, 12 November 1910, Page 8

THE REPUBLICAN DEBACLE.

Mr Roosevelt's "return from Elba" has heen followed by the defeat of the Republican army at the Congressional elections. The turn-over is reported to bo tho greatest in the history of tho Union. Fortunately the Napoleonic parallel does not extend further titan this. There- is no doom of St. Helena for Mr Roosevelt: ho is etill free to prepare his legions for the next great fight. Mr Roosevelt's whirlwind, campaign on his return from Africa and Europe- has been well compared to an attempt on the part of a general to reorganise his army on tho eve of battle. The Republican Party has been going from bad to woree of late years. Long continued success has helped to enervate it, and the very weakness of

its opponents for man/ years was a weakening force. A section of it has been closely allied with the great bu-si-ness interests, and tho American Press has aa persistently explained to Ameri-

cans the corrupt ways of great corporations that the public have come to be deeply suspicious of every such connection between politicians and business that is exposed to their gaze. I The Tariff, too, must have cost the Republicans many votes. The Press h;i.s been at some pains to throw iight on the art of tariff-making in the intoiTSts of the big manufacturer, and the steady rise in the cost of Jiving has caused a strong reaction against high Protection The Republicans are paying now for their wretched "machine system, and the unpopularity of the ■Old Guard," led by those crusted reactionaries and friends of predatory wealth—Mr Cannon, the Speaker of the House, and Senator Aldrich. Thess men in the heyday of their power were perhaps the most powerful pair m tho country, dictating tc Congress what it should not pass i into law. Their efforts were persistently applied to blocking legislation in the people's interests, and there was a much wider £ulf between Mr Roosevelt's nclicy and theirs, than between his and that of the Democratic Party. The "Insurgents," as Mr Roosevelt's followers are called, have been fighting for the expulsion from tho party of this reactionary element, with the result that the party went to the polls commanded by generals who hated one

another more than they disliked the enemy. On his return Mr Roosevefo threw himself with all his volcanic energy on the side of the "Insurgents."

What ho had to fight againr.t in his own party was shown by lsis experience in the New York Con-

vention, where lie had to struggle hard to secure the chairmanship against tho party machine, and where hf. heard himself described by a member of the "Old Guard" as "an American Jack Cade." To Mr Roosevelt himself the result of the elections must be a severe blow. The candidate he chose for the Governorship of his State, and

supported in a strenuous campaign, has been defeated by a Democrat. Mr Roosevelt now says that tho Republican Party is going through tho agony of becoming progressive, but this is only part of the truth. Tho party is also undergoing a process.of purification. To Mr Roosevelt's eyes honesty is more important than liberalism. ''Our first ' duty is to war against dishonesty," ho told the Convention. "Wo are

"warring against it in public life; we ' are- warring against it in business '' life. Corruption in every form is the " arch enemy of this Republic, the '■ arch enemy of freo institutions and of " government by the people. It is even ''more dangerous an enemy than tho 'open lawlessness of violence, because '•' it works in hidden and furtive " fashion." Above all, ho said, they would war, with all their strength, against "tho degrading allianco of ' crooked business with crooked politics," the allianco which had done so much to humble the party. Tho New York Press thinks the blow is so serious that Mr Roosevelt will never again riso to his former level of importance, but this is a doubtful conclusion. Roosevelt ism was not the irano so much as corrupt and reactionary Republicanism, and the mass of tho nation will still regard Mr Roosevelt as a champion of clean and progressive government.