Volume 17 , Issue 45

1912 - Judging The Candidates By Company They Keep

The New York Times, dated 1 August 1912, Thursday, page 10, had an interesting article: "Judging The Candidates By Company They Keep." How Roosevelt stood with discredited republican bosses, while Wilson had the people with him.

Found on Newspapers.com

A man, and particularly a man who is a candidate for high public office, should be judged largely by the company he is keeping. The facts that he can ride further and faster than anybody else, that he is good at lawn tennis, is fond of buttermilk, or can look a lion out of countenance are all good enough in their way; but these very superior accomplishments do not of themselves make him altogether desirable as a great political leader. He must be judged, in a measure at least, by the people who are backing him for the place his is after, as they give a certain appearance of verisimilitude to the cause he represents. There are now two candidates for President, against whom not one word of praise or censure need be spoken.

One stands with the discredited bosses of an old party which would do nothing to place it in touch with the changing conditions of the times; the other stands with the people unembarrassed by bossism of any sort and for an old party which has awakened to the necessity of applying old remedies to new conditions, of making the most and the best out of the material at hand. One is for making changes for the sake of change; the other is for making changes where they are needed for the general good and to promote the cause of stable government.

Col. Roosevelt represents change for the sake of change; Gov. Wilson represents change for the benefit of the country. The former has surrounded himself with the men who were powerful when they were bosses or were in intimate touch with bosses; the latter is "toting his own skillet," as they say down in Georgia, and has enlisted the services of a noble company of youngsters who have no axes to grind, no experience in practical politics," little or no knowledge of the best way of getting at ward managers, and who have been conducting their campaign down among the people who think as well as vote. Take the State of Pennsylvania, for example. On the one side there is William Flinn of Pittsburgh, a boss of the extremist type, and on the other Michell Palmer, young, vigorous, thoughtful, and gifted with he grace of perseverance and possessing withal the confidence of the people in his political integrity as well as in his personal disinterestedness. The bosses everywhere are for the Colonel. That is the difference between the representatives of the two Progressive parties; that is the difference between the men who are working with them; that is the difference between the machinery they would employ to carry out their views of what would be of service to the country.

The campaign between them has been reduced to this complexion at last, and the people have found ti out by observations and by knowledge of what has been done by the old method of the bosses and what the new method promises.

The call of the country that satisfies the heart and head of the country has been made to the young men with fresh ideas and new plans not for their own benefit, but for the benefit of the people; not for the benefit of the party especially with which they are identified, but for the benefit of the whole body politic; not in the interest of any particular class of industry, or any special interest, but in the interest of the man who pays as well as the man who plows.

It is a most interesting study of how sober minded the people are when they have the chance to follow leaders who lead away from the pitfalls that are planted for the feet of the unwary, leaders who are in the thick of the present contest not for what they can make out of it for themselves, but for what they can do for the general welfare.
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