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 Republican', state Convention 
 
 1913 
 
 PLATFORM ADOPTED 
 
 AND 
 
 SPEECHES MADE 
 
 MESSRS. SCHURMAN, ROOT, 
 HINMAN & WHITMAN 
 
 AT Carnegie Hall, New York City 
 September 23rd 
 
'.: .' 
 
^/3 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Platform Adopted 3, 8 
 
 Resolutions 9 
 
 Introductory Statement by Chairman William Barnes of 
 
 the State Committee - 10, 12 
 
 Address of Temporary Chairman President Jacob Gould 
 
 Schurman 13, 52 
 
 Address of the Permanent Chairman, Senator Elihu 
 
 Root 53, 55 
 
 Address of Harold J. Hinman 56, 67 
 
 Address of Charles S. Whitman 68, 70 
 
 iv!92056 
 
727 Seventh avenue. 
 New York 
 
1 ■> 3 3 3 
 
 . 1 J i •> 1 
 
 1 -» > J • t 
 
 Platform of the Republican Party of the State 
 
 of New York, Adopted at New York 
 
 City, September 23, 1913. 
 
 The Republican party of the State of New York will, 
 by its action here to-night, present to the voters its candi- 
 dates for Chief Judge and Associate Judge of the Court 
 of Appeals. They will be selected by a Convention com- 
 posed of delegates elected directly for that purpose in a 
 free and open primary of all the voters of the party in the 
 State. 
 
 It is confidently believed that such candidates will rep- 
 resent the true principle which should control in the selec- 
 tion of public officers, and that the men chosen will be 
 men who, by long and conspicuous public service, have 
 proved that they are able, upright, faithful and pre-emi- 
 nently fitted for judicial duty in our court of last resort. 
 
 The}^ should, and will, represent the Republican doc- 
 trine which maintains the independence, authority and 
 dignity of the judiciary. 
 
 The Republican party believes that popular obedience 
 to the control of law and the impartial, unintimidated and 
 courageous administration of justice lie at the foundation 
 of our peace, order, security and freedom. 
 
 The Republican party believes that States, like indi- 
 viduals, should be governed by principles rather than by 
 impulse, by laws rather than by men. It believes that the 
 great rules of right conduct and justice contained in our 
 Constitution should continue to control and limit the pow- 
 ers of government to the end that individual liberty may 
 be preserved and our constitutional government endure. 
 If the statement of those rules be found at any time in- 
 adequate or wrong, then the statement of the rules should 
 be changed in due and orderly manner as prescribed by the 
 Constitution. The Republican party condemns all pro- 
 posals to intimidate judges in the discharge of their duty 
 by threats of a recall in case of an unpopular decision and 
 all proposals to nullify the decisions of the courts at the 
 
will of a temporaT-y popular authority tlirough the recall 
 of decisions, 
 
 , The coming election will have a special significance be- 
 cfti'.se ihe 'election of the Republican candidates now pre- 
 sented offers the means — and the only means — for the 
 people of the State to repel and reject the malign control 
 of Tammany Hall over the politics and government of the 
 State and over the highest judicial tribunal of the State. 
 Tammany is no longer a local issue. It grasps the State ; 
 it controls the Democratic party of the State; it controls 
 absolutely the Democratic State Committee. The candi- 
 dates about to be nominated by the Democratic State Com- 
 mittee will be named by Tammany Hall. Taking advan- 
 tage of a bad law, passed by a Democratic Legislature and 
 signed by a Democratic Governor, no Democratic State 
 Convention has been called; no Democratic Primary has 
 been held ; but the Democratic State Committee, controlled 
 by Tammany Hall, is to name the candidates whom Tam- 
 many selects. To elect those condidates would be to give 
 approval, prestige and added power to Tammany and per- 
 petuate the present condition in the Court of Appeals of 
 six Democratic Judges and only one Republican. 
 
 The Republican party believes that the government of 
 our State ought no longer to be controlled by the Demo- 
 cratic party as at present constituted. That appears when 
 we consider the wretched and humiliating spectacle pre- 
 sented by the Democratic administration at Albany dur- 
 ing the past three years. Never before in the history 
 of our State has there been such a record of waste, ineffi- 
 ciency and corruption. Public duty and public interests 
 have been forgotten amid the undignified and petty quar- 
 rels of party factions, and, while the taxpayers' money has 
 been squandered, the honor and good name of our great 
 State has been lowered in the estimation of the world. 
 
 There has been great waste in the hundred million 
 dollars appropriated for the improvement of highways, 
 while the highways still remain in a deplorable condition ; 
 great extravagance in the creation of at least fifty com- 
 missions during the last two Democratic administrations; 
 in the unnecessary and wasteful increase of public offices 
 and the salary list; the moneys of the State have been 
 wasted in the reconstruction of the Capitol — until the peo- 
 ple of the State despair, under the present administration, 
 
of the restoration to the safe and efficient administration 
 of the financial affairs of the State which characterized 
 Republican administrations. 
 
 In view of the immediate interest of the whole State 
 in checking" the control of Tammany Hall over State poli- 
 tics, we consider it within the province of tliis Convention 
 to urge upon all Republicans of the City of New York, 
 and upon all lovers of good and honest government in that 
 city, not merely that they vote for the judicial candi- 
 dates now presented, but that they make every effort 
 within their power to secure the success of the anti-Tam- 
 manv local ticket in New York Citv. The most effective 
 place to strike Tammany is at home. The mayoralty and 
 the control of the great Board of Estimate and Appor- 
 tionment, which disposes of the vast revenues of the city, 
 should by all means be kept out of Tammany hands. The 
 only way to do that is to vote and work for the Republican 
 ticket, headed by Mr. Mitchel, and no Republican who 
 fails in this will do his duty to his State or to his Country. 
 
 Our election law is a disgrace and a menace to popular 
 government. It was intentionally made complicated and 
 repressive; the work of a crafty, unscrupulous Tammany 
 domination. Every Republican in the legislature voted 
 against it. We commend the Republican minority in the 
 legislature for its strict devotion to the pledges made by 
 the Republican party in the platform adopted at Sara- 
 toga in 1912 and for its earnest struggle in both branches 
 of the legislature against the recklessness, rapacity and 
 baseness of motive which constantly characterized the 
 attitude of the Democratic party. The record of the mi- 
 nority has been so open and consistent that it must be 
 apparent to the people of the State that at the coming elec- 
 tion such minority should be transformed into a majority. 
 Thus only can an effective barrier be established against 
 further demoralization of the State government. 
 
 We pledge anew our representatives in the legislature 
 to the enactment of laws which shall afford the electorate 
 of the State the safest and surest means for the expression 
 and fulfillment of the will of the people. 
 
 We reaffirm the declaration of the platform of 1912 in 
 the following words : 
 
 "It is the purpose of the Republican party to repeal 
 these statutes, to relieve the people of the State from the 
 
worse than useless expenditure of money and time which 
 they cause, and to substitute simple, direct, economical 
 and convenient methods by which the voters of the State 
 may express and make effective their wishes. To this end 
 we favor the short ballot, surrounding the primary elec- 
 tions with the same safeguards as the regular elections, 
 the direct election of party committees, the direct nomi- 
 nation of party candidates in Congressional, Senatorial, 
 Assembly, County and Municipal subdivisions, and the 
 direct election of delegates to the State Conventions, with 
 the right of party electors to directly express their pref- 
 erence for nominations for State offices if they so desire." 
 
 We also reaffirm the other declarations of the platform 
 of 1912. 
 
 At a time when we are approaching the submission to 
 the people of the advisability of holding a Constitutional 
 Convention, in failing to provide for wiiich the Democratic 
 party violated its pledge, it is of the utmost importance 
 that the Republican party should demonstrate its vital- 
 ity, its determination to enforce its historic principles of 
 true and tried constitutionalism, with the most perfect 
 guarantees of individual freedom and the inviolability of 
 the human right to protection to property honestly 
 acquired. 
 
 We reaffirm our faith in the Republican principle of 
 protection to American workingmen, American industries, 
 and the American farmer. We believe that the promises 
 made by the Democrats to reduce the cost of living by 
 constructing a tariff on a different principle will be falsi- 
 fied by experience in the near future. Inevitably the 
 Democratic tariff will destroy or injure many industries, 
 though the party is endeavoring to minimize these evils 
 under color of a banking and currency act which, through 
 its provisions for an inflated currency, is calculated to 
 give an artificial stimulus to business. 
 
 In its history of achievement, the Republican party 
 has done two great, undying services for the American 
 people: It saved them from national disruption and it 
 prevented financial disaster. Combating these pernicious 
 and disloyal principles, it preserved our national existence 
 and our national solvency and probity. To the leadership 
 and legislation of the Republican party, the nation owes 
 the gold standard, and the national banking system. For 
 
two generations the Democratic party has given aid and 
 comfort to every movement for fiat money; for the free 
 coinage of silver, and for unsound and unscientific bank- 
 ing. We denounce the Democratic banking and currency 
 bill which has passed the House of Kepresentatives and 
 is now under consideration by the Senate, as menacing 
 the business interests of the country and as inimical to the 
 interests of the whole people, because it rests upon and 
 embodies three false principles: 
 
 (1) That the interests of the owners and managers of 
 banks and those of business men and the public generally 
 are in confiict. In fact, all these interests are identical. 
 
 (2) That paper money should be issued by the gov- 
 ernment and should involve the government's credit. This 
 is unsound, unscientific and condemned by experience. It 
 is but a short step from this to greenbackism. 
 
 (3) That the control and administration of the banks 
 should be taken in large part from those who have estab- 
 lished and own them, and lodged in a board of political 
 appointees. This is a new, radical and most dangerous 
 departure from American practice. It is as unwise as it is 
 unnecessary. Government supervision and inspection of 
 national banks have been highly successful for half a cen- 
 tury, and have afforded ample protection to the public in- 
 terests. 
 
 Should this bill be enacted into law in its present form, 
 it would be easily possible for the people to lose all that 
 they gained by the vetoes of infiation measures by Presi- 
 dent Grant in 1874, by President Hayes in 1878, by the 
 successful fight against the compulsory purchase of silver . 
 led by President Cleveland in 1893, and by the victory of 
 President McKinley on a gold standard platform in 1896. 
 The powerful support of William Jennings Bryan has 
 been secured for this pending bill by the surrender, in 
 form or fact, of the sound money principles for which 
 Presidents Grant, Hayes, Cleveland and McKinley stood, 
 and in favor of the inflation doctrine which Mr. Bryan 
 made his own in 1896, and which has been overwhelmingly 
 rejected by the American people. 
 
 The words of President Cleveland, written to the Con- 
 gress on August 8th, 1893, are as pertinent now as on the 
 day they were uttered : 
 
 'Tliis matter rises above the plane of party politics. It 
 
 un 
 
vitally concerns every business and calling, and enters 
 every houseliold in the land. . . . One of the greatest 
 statesmen our country has known, speaking more than 
 fifty years ago, when a derangement of the currency had 
 caused financial distress, said: 
 
 " 'The very man of all others who has the deepest in- 
 terest in a sound currency and who suffers most by mis- 
 chievous legislation in monev matters, is the man who 
 earns his daily bread by his daily toil.' " 
 
RESOLUTIONS : 
 
 Hon. Job E. Hedges as CKairman of the Com- 
 mittee on Resolutions, presented the 
 following which was Adopted. 
 
 We instruct the representative of the State of New 
 York on 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 
 manner preferred by the Republican voters in such State; 
 we, however, urge the continuance of the Congressional 
 District as the unit of representation; and 
 
 (2) To insure that representation in national conven- 
 tions shall hereafter be based more nearly on the Repub- 
 lican vote actually cast in the several States and Congres- 
 sional Districts, which just principle received the unani- 
 mous support of the delegation from the State of New 
 York at the National Convention of 1908 ; and 
 
 (3) To amend the rules relating to party procedure in 
 such other respects as may be requisite. 
 
Remarks of William Barnes, Chairman of the 
 
 Republican State Committee, on calling 
 
 the Convention to order. 
 
 Before proceeding to the business of this convention, 
 it is proper that I should, explain the reasons why the 
 State Committee, having the power to make nominations, 
 issued the call for your assembling. 
 
 The Election Law provides that in the odd-numbered 
 years candidates for state offices shall be nominated by 
 the State Committees of the several Parties, and not by 
 Convention, unless by rule of a Convention the State 
 Committee shall have been disqualified from making such 
 nominations. No such rule has been adopted by a Repub- 
 lican State Convention. Therefore, under the Election 
 Law the State Committee of the Republican Party has 
 the power to nominate this Fall a candidate for Chief 
 Judge of the Court of Appeals to suceeed Judge Cullen, 
 and an Associate Judge of the Court of Appeals to succeed 
 Judge Gray. 
 
 This situation confronts the other political parties 
 likewise. The respective State Committees of those parties 
 have the power to nominate the candidates of those parties 
 for the judgeships that will become vacant on January 
 1st, 1914. 
 
 Recognizing that the nomination of two candidates for 
 offices of supreme importance by the State Committees of 
 the polictial parties did not afford opportunity for the en- 
 rolled electors of any of those parties to express themselves, 
 early in the legislative session of 1913 I prepared and sent 
 to Senator Brown and Assemblyman Hinman, the Repub- 
 lican leaders in two branches of the Legislature, an amend- 
 ment to the Election Law which provided that official 
 State Conventions might be held in odd-numbered years. 
 The passage of this bill would have made it possible to 
 take from the State Committees of the respective parties 
 
 10 
 
the power to nominate the candidates for judges this Fall. 
 This was all the more desirable because the State Com- 
 mittees of the Republican, Democratic, Socialist, Pro- 
 hibition and Independence League Parties were elected 
 in Marcli, 1912 — eighteen months ago — while the Pro- 
 gressive State Committee, which now has the power to 
 make nominations, was never elected at any primary 
 election, but was selected by the State Chairman of that 
 movement in July, 1912. 
 
 Its introducers endeavored to secure consideration of 
 this measure, but it slept in Committee. 
 
 During the regular session, I wrote to Senator Wag- 
 ner, the leader of the majority in the State Senate, and to 
 Speaker Smith, of the Assembly, urging the passage of this 
 proper amendment to the Election Law, but never received 
 from either of those legislators any reply. 
 
 In order that the responsibility for the nomination of 
 the Republican candidates for Chief Judge of the Court 
 of Appeals and Associate Judge, despite the failure of this 
 measure, might not rest upon the State Committee of the 
 Republican Party, but upon the enrolled electorate of the 
 Republican Party itself, a meeting of the State Committee 
 was held on July 15th, at which time the Call for the 
 Convention was issued. 
 
 The Election law defines a Convention as follows : 
 
 13. "The term ^convention' means an assem- 
 blage of delegates, elected in accordance with the 
 provisions of this chapter representing a political 
 party, duly convened for the purpose of nomina- 
 ting candidates for public office, electing delegates 
 to other conventions, electing officers for party 
 organizations, or for the transaction of any busi- 
 ness relating to the affairs or conduct of the 
 party." 
 
 You therefore are a regularly elected Convention 
 under the definition stated in the statute, and have the 
 power to recommend to the State Committee the names 
 of two candidates for judges of the Court of Appeals and 
 to transact such other business as you in your supreme 
 
 11 
 
authority, as the representatives of the Kepiiblican Party 
 elected a week ago to-day, may so desire; and the State 
 Committee is in honor bound to nominate for Chief Judge 
 of the Court of Appeals and Associate Judge of the Court 
 of Appeals, whomever this Convention may determine to 
 recommend. 
 
 I am requested by the State Committee to present for 
 your consideration as your temporary Chairman, Jacob 
 Gould Schurman, of Tompkins. Are there any other 
 nominations? 
 
 12 
 
Address of Dr. Jacob Gould Schurman, as 
 Temporary Chairman. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Convention^ Fellow Republicans : 
 
 I am deeply sensible of the honor of having been chosen 
 as temporary chairman of this convention. May I express 
 here and now my pleasure and grateful appreciation. 
 
 At the same time I trust that I may be excused another 
 remark still more personal. After a year's absence from 
 home I am delighted and thankful to be back in America 
 once more. It has been my good fortune to spend a year in 
 Greece, the foutain-head of all our civilization — in Athens, 
 "the mother," as Milton called her, "the mother of arts and 
 eloquence," and in this year I have seen the Greek nation 
 undergo a new birth and stamp with indelible impress an 
 epoch in human history. I have seen the modern Greeks 
 rival the courage and endurance of their ancestors, whose 
 exploits at Marathon and Salamis and Platea have made 
 those places forever synonymous in human history with 
 valor and heroism. I am glad to recall that America has 
 had some share in that glory. For the Greeks who re- 
 turned from this country — and they were counted by tens 
 of thousands — to join the national army showed — as I was 
 assured by the very highest authority — that they had 
 learned something in America which made them peculiarly 
 excellent soldiers. 
 
 WHAT AMERICA STANDS FOR. 
 
 Yet in spite of the year's interesting and even thrilling 
 experiences I am delighted to be home again. One may 
 temporarily reside in other countries with profit and satis- 
 faction. But for us Americans there is only one country 
 in the world to live in. The supreme object of our hearts' 
 affection is America. In our reason as in our feelings she 
 stands without a rival. And this unchallenged supremacy 
 — I had almost said this adoration — is not merely the prod- 
 uct of a patriotism which the citizens of other countries 
 might equally possess. No, there is something peculiar, 
 something altogether unique, in our devotion to America. 
 
What other country means, what other country has ever 
 meant, so much for the well-being of mankind? Has not 
 America always spelt Promise and Opportunity? Here 
 millions and millions of human beings have come to find — 
 and they have found — not only civil and religious liberty, 
 but also improved material conditions, greater well-being 
 and happiness and unlimited extension of the means of 
 education and intelligence. 
 
 I hope no one will think this description too partial. I 
 know that for some time past it has been the fashion among 
 certain Americans to criticise America. So far as there 
 are just grounds for complaint in existing economic and 
 political conditions, I shall take notice of these animadver- 
 sions hereafter. But we cannot estimate such criticism at 
 its true value without a correct perspective. And this abid- 
 ing standard of judgment we shall find in the fullest recog- 
 nition of the incomparable greatness and glory of America. 
 That is the indubitable fact, whatever else may be doubted. 
 That is the basal condition, whatever details need reform 
 and amendment. We stand proudly on what we are and 
 what we have already achieved, and we challenge the critics 
 to point to an equal record in the old world since history 
 began. Nor do we claim that Americans shall be judges. 
 We leave it to Europeans to determine. Let the most com- 
 petent among them judge. Who among them has most ex- 
 haustively studied, most profoundly apprehended, and most 
 veraciously interpreted the United States of America? No 
 one in either continent doubts it is James Bryce. Well, 
 James Bryce published in 1911 a new edition of his "Amer- 
 ican Commonwealth," and here is the last sentence of that 
 monumental work : 
 
 "That America marks the highest level, not only of 
 material well-being, but of intelligence and happiness, 
 which the race has yet attained, will be the judgment of 
 those who look not at the favored few for whose benefit 
 the world seems hitherto to have framed its institutions, 
 but at the whole body of the people." 
 
 NEED OF FURTHER PROGRESS. 
 
 Not indeed that our Republic has already attained. No 
 one, I trust, will lay such flattering unction to his soul. 
 Certainly nothing could be further from my own thought. 
 
What remains to be done may well be not less arduous 
 than the task so heroically performed by the men who 
 founded tlie Republic or the men who under Lincoln sav^td 
 it from disruption. The life of a nation is measured by 
 centuries and even millenniums, and each generation has 
 its own peculiar tasks and problems. It was to hearten 
 and encourage you in your efforts to discharge the duties 
 of your day and generation that I cited James Bryce's tes- 
 timony to the high and incomparable character of the rec- 
 ord which our Republic had already made. I wanted you 
 to feel that America had done well. Though much remains, 
 much has been accomplished. We are on the right path, 
 and we liave made good progress. And my belief is that 
 what has already been achieved is an earnest of a fuller fu- 
 ture — a pledge of American devotion to those ideals which 
 have made the Republic great and a promise of American 
 determination to pursue those ideals still more zealously 
 and to realize them still more completely in the nation's 
 life. 
 
 You see I believe in progress. But I yield to no man 
 in admiration of. the past achievements of the American 
 Republic. I do not, of course, think that the fathers set 
 the Republic agoing in such a way that it would hence- 
 forth take care of itself, that they constructed a miracu- 
 lous machine and endowed it with perpetual motion so 
 that future generations would have nothing to do, apart 
 perhaps from an occasional lubrication, but passively to 
 admire the perfection of its operation and lazily glorify its 
 inventors. But no one can surpass me in admiration of 
 the American Constitution, or in honor and reverence for 
 the men who devised it. I do not know in all the long and 
 glorious annals of mankind where to match either that 
 document or that assembly of statesmen. But time is the 
 changing form which invests everything earthly and hu- 
 man. And, as Bacon wisely observed, "what man does not 
 alter for the better time alters for the worse." In the end, 
 indeed, time prevails over the best human efforts. With 
 the lapse of ages the greedy maw of time devours every- 
 thing but immortal souls and eternal principles. 
 
 THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION. 
 
 I believe, however, that there is an indestructible prin- 
 ciple — the principle of justice — embodied in the Constitu- 
 
 15 
 
tion of the United States. Whatever else decays this will 
 live and shine forever in the political firmament. But the 
 Constitution also contains subordinate provisions which 
 are liable to fall into disuse and pass away, as some of 
 them, notably the electoral college, have already done. On 
 the other hand, the fundamental institutions created by the 
 Constitution for the establishment and maintenance of a 
 popular representative government may well survive for 
 hundreds or even thousands of years, provided they are 
 wisely modified, when modification becomes necessary, to 
 meet the changing conditions and satisfy the new aspira- 
 tions and needs of the successive generations who use 
 them. 
 
 No constitution ever was made, no constitution ever 
 will be made, once and for all; it is ever a-making by the 
 creative mind of man in response to the necessities imposed 
 upon him by new physical and economic conditions, by new 
 social organizations, by new intellectual discoveries and 
 principles, and by new moral ideals and sentiments. The 
 state is an organism; and a political organism, like a bio- 
 logical organism, moves and lives and has its being only by 
 continuous adaptation and adjustment to its environment. 
 While the organism remains the same, it retains its iden- 
 tity amid continuous modifications both of structure and 
 function. In the case of that political organism which we 
 call the State, the number, character, and extent of these 
 modifications are determined by the changes which the en- 
 vironment undergoes in its different factors — physical, 
 economic, social, intellectual and moral. 
 
 PHYSICAL AND ECONOMIC CHANGES. 
 
 When one thinks of the things which have altered the 
 conditions of life in America, w^hich have changed the face 
 of the world, indeed, since the days of Washington and 
 Madison and Hamilton, one cannot repress a feeling of 
 astonishment that the Constitution they gave us has been 
 touched so lightly by the transforming hand of time. With 
 the exception of the amendments brought about by the 
 Civil War, it has remained up to the present year abso- 
 lutely unchanged. And yet what colossal, what revolu- 
 tionary changes, have taken place in our economic, indus- 
 trial, social and intellectual life and environment ! Taken 
 
 16 
 
comprehensive than all the similar changes effected by the 
 human race not merely in any other century, not merely 
 in a millennium, but in all the ages since human life on 
 earth began. Think of some of them. Science, invention, 
 machinery, the use and control of steam and electricity and 
 the other powers of nature, vast accumulations of capital, 
 the organization of armies of laborers, strikes and lock- 
 outs, universal suffrage, cheap books and newspapers, radi- 
 cal theories of democracy and socialism — these are changes 
 patent to the most superficial observer, changes of 
 which, while some have completely revolutionized the 
 old methods of production and transportation, all have 
 combined to create a new environment to which our con- 
 stitutions, laws and political institutions are as yet only 
 inadequately adapted. 
 
 PROGRESSIVES AND STAND-PATTERS. 
 
 The adaptation of the Government of the United States 
 and of the several States to this new physical, economic, 
 financial, intellectual, moral and social environment will 
 be the principal task of American statesmanship for some 
 years to come. A Progressive is one who is conscious of 
 the imminence, of the inevitableness, of this imperious 
 problem and exerts his best efforts towards its solution. 
 A stand-patter is one who is unaware of the existence of 
 the problem, who is entirely satisfied with existing condi- 
 tions, who believes — honestly believes — that one should let 
 well enough alone, and who regards Progressives as a pes- 
 tiferous set of people bent on disturbing the peace of the 
 community. 
 
 There are two types of the Progressive. Both agree in 
 their point of departure : they are dissatisfied with existing 
 conditions, and they undertake a forward movement. They 
 differ, however, both in the rate of their movement and 
 in the direction of their goal. The one, whom I will call 
 the Evolutionary Progressive, insists on gradual develop- 
 ment, on the maintenance of existing institutions in their 
 essential features, and, when they need modification on tlie 
 attainment of a final product which is not a break with 
 the original derived from past experience, but only an im- 
 provement of it, the realization of the historic type witli 
 
 17 
 
together, the changes of that century are vaster and more 
 its faulty excrescences sloughed off. The other type of 
 Progressive demands radical and sweeping changes. He 
 wants to be on the move, no matter in what direction or 
 with what velocity, so be he gets away from the defects 
 he sees in existing laws or institutions. In the pregnant 
 language of Shakespeare, "his determinate voyage is mere 
 extravagancy." I call him the Catastrophic Progressive. 
 And this designation seems apt and appropriate. It was 
 the name applied to those Progressives in science before the 
 time of Darwin who believed in catastrophes — that is, in 
 violent, subversive and widely extended changes in the 
 natural world. And the political use of this scientific 
 term is not rendered inapposite by the fact that in ordi- 
 nary language the word ''catastrophe" implies disaster. 
 
 THE CATASTROPHIC PROGRESSIVE. 
 
 The Catastrophic Progressive reminds me of a motor- 
 boat I was provided with not long ago to board a great 
 steamer in a European harbor. The intention Avas to give 
 me something better than the other passengers enjoyed. 
 And I must say that their rowboats looked very common- 
 place beside our motor-boat, with its awnings, its cushions 
 and its fine American flag. The rowboats, however, with 
 moderate speed went directly to the great steamer, carrying 
 safely and comfortably their precious freight of human 
 lives. Our motor-boat started at a speed which left them 
 all behind, suddenly stopped, then turned in an opposite 
 direction, carrying menace to the boats moored along the 
 shore, once more made a dash for the steamer and suc- 
 ceeded in getting away beyond her, then, with imminent 
 danger to our lives, performed a sudden gyration, shot 
 through the water like a torpedo-destroyer and stopped 
 stock-still within fifty yards of the steamer. I insisted 
 on rowing the rest of the way to avoid a catastrophe. And 
 somehow we finally found ourselves on board the steamer. 
 It was, however, a narrow escape. And I shall always 
 think of that motor-boat, with its alternations of rush and 
 stand-still, now in one direction and now in another, with 
 impulse inspiring the dynamo and passion controlling the 
 helm, as a perfect example of the Catastrophic Progres- 
 sive in politics. 
 
 18 
 
A CONSTITUTIONAL PROGRESSIVE PARTY. 
 
 We want to be on our guard against the Catastrophic 
 Progressive. But we want equally to be on our guard 
 against the Conservative who has become atrophied. Since 
 all the conditions under which we live and work and make 
 our living are changing, our laws and political institutions, 
 which are only the final and formal regulation of the life 
 of the community, must of necessity adapt themselves to 
 the new environment of the twentieth century. A stand- 
 pat Conservative party in politics is in tliis age of eco- 
 nomic, industrial, social and intellectual change a sheer 
 absurdity. A political party needs, indeed, its conserva- 
 tive elements to safeguard its rich inheritance from the 
 past as it needs its radical elements to stir it into motion 
 in response to the appeals of the present; but without a 
 great body of Evolutionary Progressives to shape its 
 course and control its tendencies a political party will be 
 powerless to discharge the functions which twentieth cen- 
 tury politics in America render imperative. Some of these 
 duties are towards the Federal Government, others to- 
 wards the States, but all alike towards the American 
 people, 
 
 CHANGES IN CONSTITUTION. 
 
 I mentioned a little while ago the Federal Constitution 
 and its long resistance to change. I purposely postponed 
 mention of the fact, to which I now call your attention, 
 that in this very year we have witnessed the triumph of 
 two amendments. The nature of those amendments seems 
 to me highly suggestive of the political issues with which 
 the spirit of the age is in travail. One of them authorizes 
 the Federal Government to levy a tax on incomes. This 
 reform testifies to a deep and widely prevalent feeling 
 among the American people that the wealth of the coun- 
 try has not in the past contributed its fair share to the ex- 
 penses of government. The other amendment provides for 
 the election of United States senators by the people of the 
 several States instead of by their legislatures. By this 
 change, which invests the people with an electoral func- 
 tion hitherto exercised by their representatives, the area 
 of direct popular government is extended, without, how- 
 ever, imperiling the representative character of our Re- 
 public. 
 
 19 
 
THE INCOME TAX AMENDMENT. 
 
 Both these amendments were resisted by the Conserva- 
 tives. For my own part I advocated them. They seemed 
 to me wise, just and moderate reforms which no Evolu- 
 tionary Progressive who had thought the matter out could 
 for a moment have hesitated to support. The income tax 
 amendment is simply a new application of that principle of 
 justice which the Constitution of the United States aims to 
 express and embody. The consuming classes contribute to 
 the expenses of the Federal Government through the cus- 
 toms duties which are levied on the commodities thev use. 
 Comparatively speaking, this burden falls with greater se- 
 verity upon the poor than upon the rich and well-to-do. 
 And the income tax is a method to redress this inequality. 
 From the point of view of economic theory it is merely an 
 application of the great canon of taxation that each shall 
 pay according to his ability. And that is just. 
 
 I recognize, however, that in the use it makes of this 
 amendment of the Constitution Congress might practice in- 
 justice. Not indeed that a graduated income tax properly 
 levied is not right and fair. But if in the drafting of such 
 a statute Congress so arranged exemptions and burdens as 
 to favor some sections against others, or some citizens 
 against others, it would be guilty of doing injustice. And 
 it looks as though the pending Income Tax bill, which the 
 Democrats are going to enact into law, sinned in both these 
 respects. Indeed, I fear it is pre-eminently a discrimina- 
 tion by the South and West against three or four eastern 
 states, and, above all, against our own State of New York. 
 
 POPULAR ELECTION OF SENATORS. 
 
 The Income Tax amendment in itself, however, is a 
 new development and enlargement of justice in national 
 affairs. The other new amendment of the Federal Consti- 
 tution, that providing for the popular election of senators, 
 is a wise and salutary extension of the people's right to 
 govern themselves. The Conservative declares it lowers 
 the dignity of the office. I ask if any office can have a 
 higher dignity and consecration than that derived from 
 express and immediate election by the people? But we are 
 told that the people cannot, as a matter of fact, exercise 
 the choice which the new constitutional amendment vests 
 
 20 
 
in them. Why not? Is it harder for the people to elect 
 a Federal senator than a State governor? The one func- 
 tion seems to me as easy, and I may add as natural, for the 
 people themselves as the other. 
 
 It is argued that such direct election of United States 
 senators by the people themselves is in violation of the 
 representative character of our Republic. This objection 
 seems to me to involve confusion of thought. The Ameri- 
 can Republic is indeed a representative government, and 
 not a direct democracy. It differs in this respect from the 
 direct democracies of the ancient world. The founders of 
 the Constitution meditated long and wisely on that dif- 
 ference, and they acted with rare political sagacity and 
 wisdom in establishing for us a representative republic. 
 But it is absurd in itself, and a contradiction of the prin- 
 ciple of self-government, to maintain that because we 
 choose to have representatives to act for us where we can- 
 not act for ourselves we are also under obligation to turn 
 over to them business which we can do for ourselves. It 
 should be unnecessary to point out that there is no such 
 absurd and undemocratic implication either in the federal 
 constitution or in the scheme of government which it set 
 up. And, for my own part, devoted as I am to the princi- 
 ple and practice of representative government, and ready 
 as I am to defend it against the dangerous innovations of 
 direct democracy, it is, nevertheless, a first principle of 
 my political philosophy that the people should not dele- 
 gate to representatives political functions which it is feas- 
 ible and convenient for them directly to perform them- 
 selves. The people will do their own business quite as 
 well as any agents. For these reasons I have advocated 
 the amendment of the Federal Constitution providing for 
 the popular election of senators. 
 
 FURTHER CHANGES POSSIBLE. 
 
 From what I have already said it will not surprise yon 
 to hear that I look forward to further changes of the Fed- 
 eral Constitution. The two amendments so recently adopted 
 do not exhaust the demands which the political genius of 
 the twentieth century is making on the work of the eight- 
 eenth. The Constitution, indeed, deserves all the venera- 
 tion with which (at least until very recently) Americans 
 
 21 
 
have regarded it. It is, as Mr. Gladstone truly said, the 
 most wonderful instrument of government ever forged by 
 the brain of men. One knows not whether to admire most 
 the intrinsic excellence of the scheme, or its happy com- 
 bination of definiteness in principle with elasticity in de- 
 tails, or even its simple and statuesque form and the 
 brevity and precision of its language. It was admirably 
 adapted too to the circumstances and needs of the people 
 and of the age. And yet so deeply and generously was it 
 rooted in the soil of the historic past that it has endured 
 with scarcely a change to the present year. 
 
 But a point has now been reached where further adap- 
 tation to the conditions of modern life may become neces- 
 sary. The fundamental difference between Americans of 
 the eighteenth and Americans of the twentieth century is 
 that men and women now live and work and travel and 
 visit and trade not in restricted and separated localities, 
 but in the entire compass of the United States of America, 
 throughout which for social and commercial purposes state 
 lines, except as legal survivals, have altogether disap- 
 peared. Such has been the unifying force of science and 
 invention, of railways and telegraphs, of commerce and 
 finance, of farming and manufacturing, which have settled 
 the vacant spaces of the Continent and dotted it with cities 
 like the centres of a nervous organism. These physical 
 and economic forces are permanent forces whose potency 
 in the long future is destined to be still greater than it 
 has been in the comparatively short period since they first 
 came into operation. For all social and commercial pur- 
 poses they have, however, already made the American 
 people one people. And as modern civilization has made 
 the whole globe a smaller place than the Mediterranean 
 world of classical antiquity, so it has made our continental 
 republic of to-day a smaller country than the fringe of 
 'scattered, separated and self-contained Atlantic States 
 which adopted the Federal Constitution. You can go from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific in half the time Washington 
 would have taken to go from Boston to Charleston, and 
 the cost of transportation is much less, while your comfort 
 will be vastly greater. Thus, in spite of our half-hundred 
 different commonwealths the people of the United States 
 are being drawn ever closer together, and they now feel 
 themselves more than ever before one social and commer- 
 
 22 
 
cial body with all parts interlaced, inter-related and inter- 
 dependent. 
 
 It was, of course, impossible for the great men who 
 drafted the Federal Constitution to foresee all the changes 
 which were to transform the face of the modern world. 
 But it is obvious that this generation must find a means 
 to bring the organization of the national government into 
 greater harmony with its new economic and social environ- 
 ment. This is the great task to which Progressives — I 
 mean, Evolutionary and Constitutional Progressives — 
 should now address themselves. Above all, the organs of 
 our national commerce — not only the railways, but also the 
 industrial and trading corporations — must somehow be 
 brought under the legal regulation of the nation, alike for 
 the protection of the public and for their own protection 
 and efficiency. It will be a difficult problem to draw this 
 new line between the jurisdiction of the States and the 
 jurisdiction of the nation. But the line must be drawn. 
 It is absolutely necessary that the national organism be 
 adjusted to the environment in which it lives and moves 
 and has its being. Some extension of federal authority 
 has become inevitable. Perhaps this can be secured through 
 further judicial interpretation of the commerce clause of 
 the Constitution. If not, we shall have to resort to amend- 
 ment of the Constitution. And the two amendments 
 adopted this year show that the people are ready to alter 
 the Constitution, not indeed with rashness or levity, but 
 deliberately and on clear and indisputable grounds of pub- 
 lic good. In the present instance nothing would be needed 
 but to write into the organic law of the land a recogni- 
 tion of that commercial unification of the people of the 
 United States which new physical and economic forces 
 have brought about since the adoption of the Federal Con- 
 stitution. The absence of such a provision creates fric- 
 tion between our governmental agencies and impairs their 
 efficiency and menaces their integrity. Meanwhile the peo- 
 ple suffer loss and injury, as must always be the case when 
 the organism of government is not adapted to the environ- 
 ment over which it must exercise swav. 
 
 STATE GOVERNMENT. 
 
 I turn from the Nation to the State. I say nothing 
 about the Tariff, for conflicting theories are soon to be sub- 
 
 23 
 
mitted to the test of practical experience. And I say noth- 
 ing abont Banking and Currency Keform, because it is only 
 fair to wait till the party in power has produced the scheme 
 which is now in process of incubation. Meanwhile our 
 State Governments abound in problems, and to some of 
 them I now invite your attention. 
 
 I note in the first place that our State Governments do 
 not suffer as the National Government suffers, from any 
 inadequacy in the grant of constitutional powers to the 
 functions demanded of government in this twentieth cen- 
 tury. It is with the States not a question of the amplitude 
 of their powers, but of the use they make of them. And, 
 generally speaking, the government of our States is no- 
 toriously below the level of the government of the Nation. 
 
 Nor again have the changes wrought by modern civili- 
 zation created a chasm between the State Governments and 
 their physical and economic environment. The trouble 
 with the State Governments is that they have not been 
 brought up to the level of our practical knowledge, com- 
 mon sense, and moral ideas and principles. Even in this 
 great State of New York our government has fallen low. 
 And it must be acknowledged that the fault is not in our 
 stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. 
 
 THE THREE R's OF DEMOCRACY. 
 
 Now democracy must learn to make its government 
 honest and efficient. And the place to begin is in our local 
 and State governments. We say that all education rests 
 on the three R's. Democracy also has its three R's. It is 
 essential to democratic government that it be representa- 
 tive, responsive and responsible. It must be representa- 
 tive — that is, its agents must be genuine exponents of the 
 popular mind and will and not attorneys for special inter- 
 ests or manipulators or creatures of a party machine. It 
 must be responsive — that is, its agents must move and act 
 in harmony with the deliberate convictions and settled 
 sentiments of the people. It must be responsible — that i», 
 its agents must do their duty without fear or favor under 
 a constant sense of accountability to the people whose in- 
 terests have been entrusted to them and whose commis- 
 sion they have the honor of holding. 
 
 A despair, however, seems to have settled on the public 
 
 24 
 
mind in reference to the question of State and local offi- 
 cials. Such pessimism is absolutely foreign to the Ameri- 
 can spirit. And its existence points to some potent force 
 as generator. That force undoubtedly is the baleful influ- 
 ence wiiich the arrogant political machines have exercised 
 in politics. 
 
 PARTY ORGANIZATION. 
 
 Party organization is not only natural and legitimate, 
 it is also necessary and desirable. And nowhere in the 
 world have political parties been organized so elaborately 
 and effectively as in the United States. This is due to the 
 multitude of our elective offices and the frequency of our 
 elections. The task of nominating candidates for these 
 offices was one which the individual citizens could not per- 
 form, or at any rat-e would not undertake. The party or- 
 ganization accordingly stepped in and selected the candi- 
 dates. But the election of the party candidates involves 
 more hard work in the United States than anywhere else 
 in the world, and the average citizen, even the good citizen, 
 has neither the time nor the inclination to undertake that 
 work. Yet the voting lists must be incessantly looked 
 after, new voters enrolled, meetings arranged for, litera- 
 ture circulated, conferences held, and a mass of indescrib- 
 able details attended to, which, unimportant as they look, 
 may yet mark the difference between success and failure 
 at the polls. That the party organization, which has made 
 the nominations of candidates, should also step in and con- 
 duct the elections was under these circumstances inevit- 
 able. 
 
 This method of nomination and election could scarcely 
 fail to obscure in the minds of the candidates their proper 
 relations to the public. It was not unnatural that they 
 should regard themselves as representatives not so much 
 of the people as of the party, and not so much of the party 
 as of its organization, and not so much of the organization 
 as of its directing heads. 
 
 What was the result of this method of making nomina- 
 tions and winning elections on the directing heads of the 
 party organization themselves? It induced and enabled 
 them to usurp the powers of the organization and set up a 
 machine. They disposed of legislators with their votes 
 and governors with their vetoes and administrative dis- 
 
 25 
 
cretion. They controlled legislation; they determined 
 executive policies. I have seen, and you have seen, an in- 
 visible empire enthroned behind the constitutional govern- 
 ment of a State, putting it through its customary motions, 
 but so perverting and abusing all its processes and objects 
 that there existed in fact a government whose real object 
 was to protect the improper interests of individuals. In- 
 stead of government by the duly elected representatives of 
 the people, we have seen in one State after another govern- 
 ment through self-constituted agencies which superseded 
 those representatives. Instead of free discussion and pub- 
 lic action, we have seen private agreements and secret con- 
 ferences. Instead of the public good and equal justice to 
 all, we have seen favors and privileges granted to those 
 who supplied the boss with money for his campaign and 
 other expenses. 
 
 REMEDIES OF DESPERATION. 
 
 Do you wonder that the people all over the country have 
 been stirred to the deepest indignation at this prostitution 
 of their government? Is it surprising that they have risen 
 in their wrath and solemnly vowed that this monstrous 
 and shameless abuse of free government in America must 
 be ended once for all? Can any man of generous spirit 
 refuse to join this great army of reform and fight in so 
 noble a cause? Who that reflects can for a moment doubt 
 that the recovery and the exercise of political power by 
 the people themselves is essential to the very life and 
 vitality of our States and Nation? 
 
 I have already said that in consequence of the long 
 and demoralizing exercise of power by bosses and ma- 
 chines the people have reached a point where they almost 
 despair of securing able and honest men for the service of 
 their States. And this pessimism has, it seems to me, in- 
 spired, or at any rate colored, most of the schemes of reform 
 which have hitherto been brought for^^ard in the interest 
 of government by the people themselves. Thus it is be- 
 cause they feel that their legislative representatives can- 
 not be trusted that the people in some States are taking to 
 themselves the direct power of law-making through the 
 instrumentality of the Referendum and the Initiative. It 
 is because they feel that they cannot secure able and 
 
 26 
 
honest administrative officials that they liang over their 
 heads the Damocles sword of Recall. The same suspicion 
 of corruption has still more obviously animated recourse 
 to legislation for the regulation and supervision of politi- 
 cal parties, which, in all other countries are, so far as I 
 know, left free to manage their own affairs. Dreading 
 the influence of the machine and distrusting their own 
 power to eject the bosses and make a party organization 
 genuinely representative of the party and its principles, 
 the voters have resorted to legal regulation to limit the 
 powers of the machine, while at the same time they have 
 divested it of the function of making nominations which 
 they themselves undertake to perform directly through the 
 instrumentality of statutory primaries, which substantially 
 duplicate all elections. 
 
 What shall we say of these measures of reform? Do 
 they put the people in possession of their own govern- 
 ment? What is their effect on our representative institu- 
 tions? Are they likely to give us better men in public 
 office? 
 
 APPEALS TO FEAE. 
 
 The one great argument which we hear in favor of 
 measures tending to supersede representative government 
 by direct popular government is that the people are as 
 likely to be wise and judicious as their representatives and 
 ageats and more likely to be honest and independent. And 
 I think it must be recognized that so long as the people are 
 served by men whom they cannot trust, so long will the 
 Recall be a good whip to hold over public officials and the 
 Initiative and Referendum a good spur and curb for legis- 
 lators. These institutions all appeal to the official's sense 
 of fear. I am far, indeed, from underestimating the im- 
 portance of such a motive. But no one will claim it is the 
 highest or even the most effective of the springs of human 
 conduct. And in the work of government, as in every 
 other work of life, we get the best results only when the 
 highest and most efficient motives and powers are brought 
 into play. 
 
 In their effect on the public official the Initiative, 
 Referendum and Recall must be described as negative and 
 deterrent forces. He shall not do this, tliat, or the other 
 thing under penalty of having his head cut off. No doubt 
 
 27 
 
this is the beginning of good administration, but it is only 
 the beginning. It does not carry us much beyond the 
 alphabet and the primer. For it is not enough to repress 
 the evil dispositions of public officials by appeals to their 
 fears. We must also stimulate them to the exercise of 
 their highest and best powers in the service of the public. 
 If they are to do much for us we must expect much from 
 them and make it possible for them to do it. All these 
 remedial measures are pitched on a low plane of expecta- 
 tion. They are really devised for the uses of a community 
 whose officials as a rule are not fit to hold office. 
 
 PUT THE BEST MEN IN OFFICE. 
 
 What democracy needs above any other form of govern- 
 ment — for it is the most difficult and delicate of all 
 forms of government — is to get and hold the best men in 
 office. My own belief is that there are enough of men of 
 character and capacity, especially young men, ready to 
 serve the public if they only had the chance. And now 
 that the people are so generally taking nominations into 
 their own hands, I expect to see these superior citizens 
 put forward for office. On that hope more than on any 
 other reform whatever I base my confidence in the future 
 of our Government — State and National. Constitutions are 
 but engrossed parchment, laws are but printed paper: it is 
 not these, it is men of flesh and blood, of heart and soul, of 
 intellect and character, men of patriotism and civic devo- 
 tion in the offices of legislation and administration and 
 especially in the Chief Magistracy that are to make your 
 governments what you would have them be. 
 
 Men, I say, of higher ability and character than the 
 average of those who have served the public in the days 
 of machine domination are coming forward for political 
 service in the near future. Now^ so far especially as our 
 States are concerned it is of the utmost importance to keep 
 the way open for them and to do everything in our power 
 to encourage them. Most particularly must the highest 
 offices be kept and made attractive. I do not, of course, 
 mean that they shall be made attractive by the pecuniary 
 compensation which we attach to them, but by the oppor- 
 tunities we offer for high, generous and unfettered public 
 service. 
 
 28 
 
AND THE NEED OF THE RECALL DISAPPEARS. 
 
 Such men as I have in mind will be rather above than 
 below the average of the community. Some of them are 
 likely to be leaders. None of them will fear responsibility 
 in the performance of their public duties. On the other 
 hand, the prospect of Recall at the bidding of some dis- 
 gruntled faction or clique could not but repress their 
 ardor in the public service, weaken their initiative in new 
 and difficult undertakings, and inevitably impair that 
 Independence which is at once the crown of manhood and 
 the supreme condition of constructive statesmanship. 
 Consequently, whatever arguments may be adduced for the 
 use of the Recall in communities with notoriously incapable 
 and untrustworthy officials, whom a tyrannical machine 
 imposes upon the public, I should deprecate the adoption 
 of the institution by the State of New York without more 
 evidence than w^e have to-day that it is absolutely neces- 
 sary for our political salvation. And I venture to assert 
 that if the energy now spent on behalf of this measure 
 were directed towards securing good men for public office^, 
 even the advocates of Recall would recognize that it had 
 become unnecessary. 
 
 THE INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM. 
 
 I have already spoken of the Initiative and Referen- 
 dum in general terms in connection with the Recall. The 
 advocates of these measures claim that they are needed 
 because legislatures defy or ignore public opinion. That, 
 however, is a contention to be examined. Here in New 
 York State, at any rate, it seems to me the people can 
 always secure — certainly in the long run — such legislation 
 as they want and balk such legislation as they do not 
 want. This result is produced by the operation of public 
 opinion, which no legislator has the temerity to defy. If 
 in other States the people consider the Initiative and Ref- 
 erendum useful means of government we must, of course, 
 recognize their right to manage their own affairs. But of 
 course they, too, must acknowledge that the effects pro- 
 duced by the adoption and use of the Initiative and Refer- 
 endum are beyond the control of the advocates who are 
 responsible for the introduction of these measures. 
 "Things are what they are," Bishop Berkeley used to say, 
 
 29 
 
"and the consequences will be what they will be; why then 
 should we wish to deceive ourselves?" 
 
 Now I believe it is an indisputable proposition that the 
 use of the Initiative and Referendum is gradually under- 
 mining our representative institutions and lowering the 
 dignity and importance of our State legislatures. For my 
 own part I agree with the founders of the Republic in the 
 rejection of the ancient system of direct democracy. I 
 believe that the efficiency and perpetuity of our Republic 
 depend on the maintenance of its representative character. 
 Now the three great organs of a representative government 
 are the Executive Magistracy, the Legislature and the 
 Courts. Unless the sovereign people leave these organs to 
 be exercised by the agents whom the people freely select, 
 they cannot have representative government. They will 
 have a government partly representative and partly direct. 
 But the predominant partner in this extraordinary com- 
 bination is, of course, the temporary majority of the peo- 
 ple. How can the agent have any independent footing in 
 the presence of such a partner? Consequently in such a 
 case your representative government is already in process 
 of transformation into direct government; and your agent 
 in the Magistracy, Legislature, or Judiciary is already 
 shorn of his independence. 
 
 UNDERMINING STATE LEGISLATURES. 
 
 The Initiative and Referendum are institutions which, 
 whatever the pleas or the intentions or the beliefs or hopes 
 of their advocates, do actually tend to supersede the State 
 legislatures. I would improve our legislatures by making 
 seats in them more attractive to capable, honest, and 
 patriotic men. I would take political power from the 
 party organization and restore it to the people's elected 
 representatives in the State government. I would en- 
 courage these representatives of the people to take a share 
 in the leadership of their parties and bear their full respon- 
 sibilitity for the legislation they enacted and the admin- 
 istration they maintained. And just at this time when the 
 machine is everywhere smitten with impotency, there is an 
 opportunity for this new political life to germinate. What 
 is needed above all else is the entrance of independent, 
 ocapable and trustworthy men into the public service. And 
 
 30 
 
no department of the State governmeut contains greater 
 possibilities of healthful development and reform than the 
 legislature. Will you seize this moment to lessen its attract- 
 iveness, to lower its dignity, to diminish its importance, 
 to weaken its independence, and even to supersede its 
 activities by reverting to that reactionary system of direct 
 popular legislation which ruined the republics of antiquity 
 and which (except for petty cantons) the world has since 
 left in the scrap-heap of discredited and discarded 
 experiments? 
 
 CAPABLE AND HONEST LEGISLATORS THE SOL^ 
 
 REMEDY. 
 
 I suspect that the introduction of the Initiative and 
 Referendum into the States which have adopted them was 
 facilitated by that pessimistic spirit in regard to securing 
 good State oflicials for which the machine with all its 
 other sins must bear the responsibility. But with party 
 nominations so largely taken out of the hands of the ma- 
 chine and vested directly in the people themselves we may 
 surely expect representative assemblies of a higher char- 
 acter — assemblies certainly above the intiuences which 
 great financial interests have in the past too often exerted. 
 And just in proportion as this reasonable hope and expec- 
 tation of reform in the character of our State Legislatures 
 is realized does the assumption of the necessity or expedi- 
 ency of the Initiative and Referendum fall to the ground. 
 
 There is another very important consideration in con- 
 nection with this subject which I desire to press upon 
 your serious attention. One advantage of our federal sys- 
 tem with its half-hundred sovereign self-governing States 
 is that political experiments can be tried on a local scale 
 by communities which believe in the policies experimented 
 upon without permission of the rest of the Union and with- 
 out involving it in any way in the results. Unfortunately, 
 in recent years there has been, in consequence perhaps of 
 the prevailing political unrest and discontent, a somewhat 
 impulsive disposition to assume that radical changes 
 heralded as great reforms by their enthusiastic promoters 
 in certain Western States, perhaps sparsely populated, 
 almost certainly with peculiar economic or political con- 
 si 
 
ditions, must be panaceas for other or all States, though 
 some of these may have ten times the population and in 
 many of them the economic and political conditions are 
 entirely different. 
 
 NEW YORK VS. OREGON. 
 
 I wish, therefore, emphatically to proclaim that the 
 State of New York is under no kind of obligation — either 
 in the forum of reason or good statesmanship — to adopt 
 the Initiative and Referendum because Oregon or Kansas 
 has adopted them and because the original advocates of 
 the measures in those States are satisfied with the results. 
 
 By the way, did you know that in Oregon those original 
 advocates were largely single-taxers, that their first enthu- 
 siasm for direct legislation sprang from the belief that it 
 could be used to introduce the single-tax programme, and 
 that they have since made Oregon the critical battle-field 
 of the single-tax propaganda in America? If they are 
 satisfied with the Initiative and Referendum, the people 
 of Oregon in general may have other sentiments. Cer- 
 tainly the eingle-taxers have plagued them with single-tax 
 Initiative proposals ever since, and the overwhelming de- 
 feat which these policies received last November at the 
 polls may be due to the voters' determination to get a rest 
 from the troubles and annoyances which these manipula- 
 tors of direct legislation annually impose upon the people 
 of the State. 
 
 But even if Oregonians were more generally and 
 heartily in favor of the Initiative and Referendum than 
 visitors to that State actually find them, it would by no 
 means follow that the people of the Empire State should 
 follow their lead. Why should this vast, populous, and 
 infinitely complex and diversified State of New York rush 
 into all the political uncertainties, hazards, and evils of 
 direct legislation? Already we control our legislation 
 through the force of public opinion. Why should we 
 change the system? Certainly before embarking on the 
 perilous sea of direct legislation we had better wait for the 
 result of the experiment in other States and for a period 
 a good deal longer than the few years since the introduc- 
 tion of the Initiative and Referendum into Oregon. 
 
 32 
 
HOW DIRECT LEGISLATION WORKS IN OREGON. 
 
 Meanwhile Oregon experience is enough to give us 
 pause. Look at some of the results in the election of last 
 November. No fewer than thirty-seven legislative pro- 
 posals of State-wide scope were put before the citizens of 
 the State ! Of these seven referred to taxation and finance, 
 seven to highways, three to the State university, three to 
 penology, one to the date of the taking effect of the law 
 passed by the legislature to regulate the State printing, and 
 one for the establishment of the office of hotel inspector of 
 the State, while two were designed to modify the system of 
 direct legislation and another (as though it were a small 
 matter) to reorganize the executive and legislative depart- 
 ments of the Government! 
 
 In this huge mass and undigested medley of measures 
 I had almost forgotten to mention another which received 
 16,910 votes. This was a proposed law requiring that the 
 sheets on hotel beds should be at least 103 inches long and 
 81 inches wide ! You may smile at this triviality ! But I 
 recall Darwin's remark that in science "it is the triflling 
 facts which are significant." Now have not the people the 
 right to rule — to manage their own affairs? And will not 
 the 10,000,000 people of the State of New York be ten 
 times as competent as a million people in Oregon to regu- 
 late the minimum dimensions of hotel sheets? Nothing in 
 the Oregon programme of direct legislation at the last 
 election seems to me more significant or instructive than 
 this Initiative measure fixing the minimum number of 
 inches for the length and breadth of the sheets in the 
 hotels of the State. 
 
 Of course, when the people do their legislative work 
 so exhaustively it takes a good deal of space even to de- 
 scribe it by titles. In 1910 a Portland policeman, as he 
 came from the polls said: "It's like voting a bed-quilt." 
 But last November the Oregon ballot was still larger; it 
 was a yard in length by half a yard in breadth ; or, to be 
 exact, (and using the standard of the hotel bed-sheets) it 
 was 34 1/2 inches long and I814 inches wide. 
 
 On this ballot were the thirty-seven measures submitted 
 to the people of the State. But this was only the begin- 
 ning. Some of these measures were highly complex and 
 technical. Accordingly a campaign book with the argu- 
 
 33 
 
ments pro and contra was indispensable for the mental 
 illumination of the electors of the State. And in this 
 campaign book thirteen of the thirty-seven measures were 
 both advocated and opposed. Twelve more of the measures 
 were recommended by arguments without objections on 
 the other side. The remaining twelve measures were 
 unargued. 
 
 What did the people of Oregon do with this mass of 
 proposed legislation? In the first place, only eleven of 
 the thirty-seven measures received votes enough for enact- 
 ment into law. And, secondly, of this entire list of eleven 
 measures which secured the voters' approval, all but two 
 were so brief that they did not require more than a min- 
 ute's time for reading and intelligent comprehension, and 
 as a matter of fact seven of them were unargued in the 
 campaign book. 
 
 LESSONS FROM OREGON'S EXPERIENCE. 
 
 Let me leave with you a few lessons from the Oregon 
 election of last November. The first is that the voters have 
 grown wary of involved and radical schemes commending 
 themselves under the name of reform, and refuse to enact 
 into law any measures except those making clear and 
 simple changes in existing statutes. Secondly, for more 
 complex and constructive legislation the voters are com- 
 ing to recognize that any measures proposed should be sub- 
 mitted to discussion, criticism, and amendment before 
 enactment into law, and that tlie Initiative does not afford 
 opportunity for these indisj)ensable functions; and I be- 
 lieve that as time goes on they will be brought as a result 
 of their own experience to the conclusion of world-history 
 to the effect that for the work of legislation a genuine 
 representative legislature is the best institution known to 
 man. Thirdly, the experience of Oregon contradicts the 
 statements and arguments of the advocates of direct legis- 
 lation in one point, which, however, is fundamental. They 
 have always said that the use of the Initiative and Refer- 
 endum was for emergencies and would not be resorted to on 
 ordinary occasions ; nay, that if the people possessed these 
 weapons they would not want to use them. Now over 
 against this asseveration and prediction is the fact that in 
 Oregon, thanks to the pernicious activity of scheming busy- 
 
 34 
 
bodies and agitatiuj^- cliques, the number of measures sub- 
 mitted at a given election for direct legislation by the peo- 
 ple has in a few years risen from two to thirty-seven ; and 
 of these most have to do with ordinary matters and some 
 of them with matters as trivial as the size of hotel bed- 
 sheets, or a change in the legislative enactment regarding 
 the date for the going into effect of a new State printing 
 act, or the establishment of a new office of State hotel in- 
 spector. Fourthly, must it not also be borne in upon the 
 mind of the Oregonians that the Initiative on the one hand 
 puts the voters of the State at the mercy of all kinds of 
 schemers and manipulators, while on the other hand it ma- 
 terially reduces, if it does not altogether destroy, the op- 
 portunities for genuine leadership? 
 
 NOMINATING CONVENTIONS AND PRIMARIES. 
 
 I now pass from the subject of direct legislation to the 
 subject of direct primaries. If the making of laws, other 
 than that organic law which we call the Constitution, is 
 clearly the function of the people's representatives and not 
 of the people themselves, what shall we say of the function 
 of nominating candidates for public office? 
 
 In the past nominations were always made by the 
 representatives of the party assembled in convention. In- 
 deed, the function of nominating the party candidates has 
 been by far the most important function of the party 
 organization. And not only that. But when the party 
 organization was usurped by the machine, the control of 
 nominations is what gave the boss nine-tenths of his power. 
 If, therefore, the people are to dethrone the boss and re- 
 sume the powers which he has usurped, and which he ille- 
 gitimately wields, they must divest him of the function of 
 naming the party candidates for office. And this again 
 they can do either by themselves naming directly the can- 
 didates for their respective parties or, if that is not feasible 
 or expedient, by selecting genuine representatives who will 
 come together in a party convention, and, taking account 
 of political sentiment and conditions and candidates in 
 the different sections of the district or State, nominate 
 such candidates as will be most likely to meet the approval 
 of their constituents and stand the best chances of suc- 
 cess in the subsequent election by the people. 
 
 35 
 
Of course I am speaking of honest and genuine party 
 conventions and direct primaries. We all know that con- 
 ventions have been held which merely reflected the will 
 and purpose of a single man — the party boss. And we all 
 know, also, that the party boss has learned to manipulate 
 the direct primary, and that the brand now legalized in the 
 State of New York lends itself admirably to such manipu- 
 lations. But I cannot discuss these institutions at all, if 
 at every step I must take account of the perversions and 
 abuses of them. I must perforce consider them with ref- 
 erence to their primary intent and ideal constitution. So 
 regarded, the direct primary puts nothing between the 
 voter and his choice of candidate; it is a frictionless organ 
 for the expression of his free choice. 
 
 ADVANTAGE OF PRIMARIES, AND LIMITATIONS. 
 
 The direct primary, I say, mirrors the mental prefer- 
 ence of the individual voter — of thousands or millions of 
 individual voters. It offers, however, no opportunity for 
 consultation, debate, or conference beyond neighborhood 
 or locality limits. Accordingly, it is peculiarly adapted to 
 the function of making party nominations for local officers 
 and for State assemblymen and senators and for represen- 
 tatives in Congress. Whether it can be successfully used in 
 making nominations for State offices in large and populous 
 States cannot yet be asserted in view of the comparatively 
 short experience we have had of the system. If it could be 
 successfully used for this purpose I should favor it on the 
 general principle that in a democracy it is better for the 
 people themselves to perform directly and personally all 
 political functions which it is not absolutely necessary for 
 them to delegate to representatives. But, with my present 
 knowledge, I am of the opinion that in New York State, 
 with its vast area, its nine or ten million inhabitants, its 
 highly diversified industrial and economic conditions, both 
 rural and urban, nothing short of a party convention, with 
 unrestricted opportunity for conference and discussion, 
 can adequately reflect the composite sentiments of the 
 entire party on the subject of the best and strongest candi- 
 dates for nomination as standard-bearers of the party in 
 the State. 
 
 36 
 
THE REPUBLICAN POLICY IN REGARD TO 
 
 PRIMARIES. 
 
 In the Saratoga Convention of 1910, I advocated both 
 in committee and on the floor of the Convention, a genuine 
 system of direct primaries for the nomination of all party 
 candidates except the Governor and his associates on the 
 State ticket. My resolution was voted down by a com- 
 bination of impassioned opponents of any primaries and 
 impassioned advocates of universal primaries. But that 
 resolution probably represented then, and it certainly 
 represents to-day, the views of the great majority of the 
 Republican party — and, I believe, of the people of the 
 State. I rejoice, therefore, that two years later, in the 
 State Convention of 1912, the party accepted this pro- 
 gramme. Listen to the admirable declaration it made: 
 
 "We favor the short ballot, surrounding the primary 
 elections with the same safeguards as regular elections, 
 the direct election of party committees, the direct nomina- 
 tion of party candidates in congressional, senatorial 
 assembly, county and municipal sub-divisions, and the 
 right of party electors to directly express their preference 
 for nominations for State offices if they so desire." 
 
 To carry out this policy the Republican minority last 
 winter introduced bills into the legislature. They were, 
 however, defeated by the Democratic majority. Some 
 months afterwards the Governor caused, on April 12th, a 
 direct primary bill to be introduced, practically identical 
 with the Republican measures except that it abolished the 
 State Convention. In their devotion to primary reform the 
 Republicans declared their readiness to vote for the Gov- 
 ernor's bill if it was amended to preserve the State Con- 
 vention. The Governor refused, and his bill was beaten 
 in both houses. It was again beaten in the extraordinary 
 session of the legislature. In this extraordinary session, 
 the Republican minority once more attempted to have their 
 primary reform measure enacted into law, but their pur- 
 pose was again thwarted by the Democratic majority. 
 
 A GREAT REFORM MEASURE. 
 
 I appeal to all advocates of direct primaries to support 
 this great reform. Does the extremist object that it does 
 not provide for universal primaries? I answer that it goes 
 
 37 
 
quite as far in that direction as the mind of the Republi- 
 can party. Nay, it goes quite as far in that direction as 
 the disinterested and intelligent opinion of the citizens 
 of the State. What has the extremist accomplished in the 
 past which would compare with such a substantial result 
 as this measure offers him? What other prospect has he 
 in the future of getting his program so fully carried out? 
 At present we offer him genuine unadulterated direct pri- 
 maries for all municipal and county officers, for State 
 assemblymen and senators, and for representatives in the 
 Congress of the United States as well as for delegates to 
 the State conventions of his party, with the right of party 
 voters directly to express their preference as regards those 
 candidates whom the State Convention is to nominate. 
 Here, I say, is a door which I should think every direct 
 primary man, every sensible reformer, would be glad to 
 enter. 
 
 But this reform is larger, more vital, more significant 
 than I have yet indicated. It may be that after experience 
 with the system of direct primaries which I have been 
 describing, the people of the State will desire to extend it 
 to the Governorship and other State offices. Now have 
 you reflected how simple and easy a matter it would be to 
 make that final application of the system? Why, the voters 
 have only to nominate assemblymen and senators pledged 
 to it to have it enacted into law. For assemblymen and 
 senators make the laws, and our system of direct prima- 
 ries puts the nomination of senators and assemblymen in 
 the hands of the voters themselves. And that system we 
 are solemnly pledged to carry out as soon as the party 
 comes again into office in this State. And in my opinion 
 that will be in the very near future. 
 
 AN EVOLUTIONARY PROGRESSIVE PLATFORM. 
 
 I have been discussing under different aspects what I 
 regard as the one fundamental problem of the politics of 
 our day. That problem is the adjustment of our govern- 
 ment on the one hand to the more complex physical, eco- 
 nomic, and social environment and on the other hand to 
 the more developed intelligence, conscience, and civic sense 
 of the American people in this twentieth century. And I 
 have shown that at many points there is a clamant neces- 
 
 38 
 
sity for modifying both the organs and the functions of our 
 governments and of our political parties. But I have not 
 proposed any violent break with the past or any radical 
 measure of change. My policy is the scientific ideal of 
 gradual and persistent improvements which without en- 
 dangering the vitality of the political organism will pro- 
 duce in it a marked reformation and culminate in its com- 
 plete adaptation both to the conditions of the modern 
 economic world and the spirit and aspirations of twentieth 
 century Americans. The work to be done in American 
 politics to-day is, I have said, a work for Moderate, Con- 
 stitutional, or Evolutionary Progressives. Even where the 
 existing mal-adjustment of government to economic con- 
 ditions and intellectual and moral requirements is at its 
 worst, I have found no occasion for the radical changes 
 proposed by Kevolutionary or Catastrophic Progressives. 
 And I find less reason for them than anywhere else in the 
 domain of our judiciar}^, to which I now invite your 
 attention. 
 
 OUR JUDICIAL SYSTEM. 
 
 Civilization is the substitution of law for impulse and 
 passion. And law, enacted by legislatures, is interpreted 
 and applied by the courts. The decision of the courts is 
 not the will of the judges, but the will of the people as 
 enacted in the constitution or laws which the judges eluci- 
 date and interpret. The ancient Romans with fine insight 
 called their chief judicial ofiflcer — the praetor — "the living 
 voice of the civil law." Our highest court in the same way 
 is the living voice of the Constitution. And as the Con- 
 stitution is the deliberate enactment of the people, this 
 living voice gives utterance to the legal conscience of the 
 people. It declares the people's solemn and deliberate 
 guarantee of the inviolable rights of individuals and 
 minorities. The sophist may preach that justice is the 
 power of the stronger and the demagogue may rant that 
 justice is the vote of the majority; but the Court — that 
 voice of the Constitution, that legal conscience of the peo- 
 ple — in the cool, dry atmosphere of judicial determination, 
 with the everlasting stars of justice shining above it, i)ro- 
 tects the weakest against the strongest and upholds the 
 rights of even a feeble minority against the assaults of the 
 most vehement, impatient and tyrannical majority. 
 
 39 
 
No wonder that James Bryce, in speaking of the federal 
 courts, testifies that there is "no part of the American 
 system which reflects more credit on its authors, or has 
 worked better in practice." No wonder that for four gen- 
 erations Americans themselves have gloried in their 
 courts as the impregnable bulwarks of their rights and 
 liberties. 
 
 ATTACKS ON THE COURTS. 
 
 It is difficult to explain the change which has suddenly 
 come over the public mind in regard to our judicial system. 
 In part, no doubt, it is due to political agitation, though 
 the suddenness and extent of the change suggest also the 
 operation of other causes. But whatever the explanation 
 of the phenomenon, there can be no doubt of the fact. 
 Our courts are now subjected day after day to fierce and 
 bitter attacks. It is roundly declared that our State judges 
 are hopelessly enmeshed in technicalities, that our State 
 judicial procedure is a hindrance to justice and a comfort 
 to criminals, and that our State courts have lost touch 
 with life and have grown petrified in pettifogging abstrac- 
 tions. 
 
 NEEDED REFORM IN PROCEDURE, &c. 
 
 It may well be that certain evils have grown up in con- 
 nection with the practice of our courts which need to be 
 corrected. And I rejoice that the bar and the intelligent 
 public have already set themselves to improve our civil 
 and especially our criminal procedure, to end the law's de- 
 lay, to reduce the expenses of litigation, and to mitigate 
 the other evils of which the public not unreasonably com- 
 plains. I expect that with the accomplishment of these 
 and other reforms, our courts will fully regain the popular 
 respect and confidence which in some degree has recently 
 been withdrawn from them. Certain I am that the courts 
 need to possess and enjoy that popular esteem and support 
 for the successful discharge of their functions in the com- 
 monwealth. And the sooner we can reform what needs 
 reform in our judicial system — of course, without endan- 
 gering the institution or radically changing its traditional 
 operations — the better will it be not only for the courts, 
 but also for the commonwealth. Let it also be remembered 
 
 40 
 
that, if our judicial system needs any amendment, it is 
 the duty of the citizens of the State and not of the judges 
 of the courts to make it. If there are evils in our State 
 judicial system it is because we — the citizens — have failed 
 to do our duty. The judges have done the best they knew 
 how with the judicial establishment we put into their 
 hands. Perhaps the main trouble is that we interfere too 
 much with their freedom. Perhaps they should have the 
 same discretion and latitude as English judges enjoy. It 
 is quite possible that our statutory codes of procedure 
 might, with great advantage, be superseded by short and 
 simple Practice Acts. 
 
 THE RECALL OF JUDGES. 
 
 Instead of correcting the specific evils which may have 
 developed in connection with our courts by salutary meas- 
 ures of reform — the one to end this evil and the other to 
 end that — the Catastrophic Progressives have brought 
 forth a panacea which they claim will correct all evils at 
 once. Of course it is a revolutionary measure. It is 
 natural for this school of reformers to insist on advanc- 
 ing through catastrophes and cataclysms. Are there any 
 evils in the judicial department of the Government? Well, 
 they have an infallible cure! That cure is — the Recall of 
 judges. 
 
 I have already sjwken of the Recall in connection with 
 the executive and legislative departments of the Govern- 
 ment and I have given reasons for rejecting it in the State 
 of New York. The force of that reasoning is augmented 
 ten-fold or a hundred-fold when we come to consider the 
 judiciary. For independence is the breath of life to the 
 good judge. The framers of the Federal Constitution un- 
 derstood this perfectly. They did not permit the President 
 to remove the judges nor Congress to diminish their sal- 
 aries. Are we so much wiser than the Fathers of the Re- 
 public that we can afford to reverse their principles and 
 maxims of government? They gave us a government of 
 law administered by independent courts. Shall we turn 
 it into a government of demagogues and agitators who 
 override the courts by the vote of a temporary majority of 
 partisans? 
 
 41 
 
THE RUIN OF COURTS OF JUSTICE. 
 
 Can any reasonable man doubt the effect of this policy 
 to remove judges without cause shown or hearing had? It 
 puts the judge at the mercy of every defeated and disap- 
 pointed litigant. It puts the judge at the mercy of every 
 opposing political party or faction. It discourages honest 
 and fearless interpretation of the law and puts a premium 
 on the insinuating arts of popularity and the gift of 
 triumphant stump oratory. It discourages able and honest 
 lawyers from becoming judges. It deprives the public of 
 judicial work of the best quality, which is a prime requisite 
 in a democracy builded on the principle of justice. It 
 robs the weak and helpless of that protection of their 
 rights which an able and fearless judge never hesitates to 
 assert against the richest individual or the strongest politi- 
 cal party. It compels the judge to regard not only the 
 law but the constant dangers of attack on himself if his 
 interpretation is unsatisfactory to a group of partisans 
 or to an excited temporary majority. But justice should 
 hold the scales evenly, and be blind to every consideration 
 but the law. From the heights of this ideal the operation 
 of the Recall must inevitably drag down our courts. For 
 psychological laws are as inexorable as physical laws. 
 Power cows its helpless victim. Nothing but superhuman 
 virtue can save men from cowering in the presence of ruth- 
 less power. And nothing but the superhuman virtue of 
 an occasional extraordinary judge can save a court, under 
 the operation of the Recall, from degenerating into a cow- 
 ardly, accommodating and spineless body of time-servers. 
 
 RECALL OF JUDICIAL DECISIONS. 
 
 But vicious as the Recall of Judges is in principle, and 
 baleful as it is in its effect upon the independence of the 
 judges and the authority and integrity of the courts, every 
 citizen is to-day exposed to a vastly greater danger, involv- 
 ing principles still more vicious and entailing consequences 
 not only demoralizing to the courts but subversive of the 
 Constitution and the fundamental institutions of free gov- 
 erment. I allude to the proposed Recall of Judicial De- 
 cisions by popular vote. 
 
 The complete independence of the courts, once they 
 have been established by the supreme power of the State, 
 
 42 
 
whether that power be an absolute monarch or the sover- 
 eign people, is essential to the proper discharge of their 
 judicial function; though, of course, a modification of the 
 judicial organization, or of its function, may at any time 
 be prescribed, either by the monarch through a decree, or 
 by the people through an amendment of the Constitution. 
 But the courts thus organized by the sovereign power of 
 the State, must, from the very nature of the functions 
 assigned to them, be left in absolute independence, both by 
 that sovereign power and by the other departments of the 
 Government. This necessity flows from the very nature of 
 justice which the courts are established to administer, and 
 it is rooted, also, in the constitution of man. 
 
 Man is a self-controlling dynamo. What in human 
 nature is dynamic, energetic, impulsive — what in human 
 nature is will and desire — expresses itself in the State, and 
 acts in the State, through the executive and legislative 
 departments of the Government. Through these the people, 
 under certain coiistitutional regulations, do what they 
 please. But self-control, that other, that divine element in 
 human nature, is in the State expressed and represented 
 by the courts. It is the business of the courts to main- 
 tain the restraints which we have imposed upon ourselves 
 in the Constitution. When a community loyally accepts 
 and stands by the restraints which, through the Constitu- 
 tion, it has imposed upon itself, you see at its highest 
 pitch of excellence both human nature and democratic 
 government. 
 
 But impatience of constitutional restraints is a char- 
 acteristic not merely of all demagogical agitators, but of 
 many sincere though impatient reformers. And, in a re- 
 cent decision of the highest court of our State, they have 
 found the latest occasion for resenting and denouncing 
 that control which the fundamental principles of the Con- 
 stitution impose upon us. 
 
 WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION LAW. 
 
 In the case of Ives vs. the South Buffalo Railway Com- 
 pany, the New York Court of Appeals held unconstitu- 
 tional a compulsory Workmen's Compensation Act. The 
 Act provided that, in case of injury to an employee in cer- 
 tain dangerous occupations, the employer should pay 
 
 43 
 
damages, even though the accident were not due to negli- 
 gence or any other fault on his part. The court held that 
 this law was not within the police power of the State, but 
 violated the constitutional prohibition against taking prop- 
 erty without due process of law. 
 
 Now the general public are entirely in accord with the 
 workers for social reform, and the advocates of fresh appli- 
 cations of the principle of justice to modern industrial con- 
 ditions, on the proposition that we must have in this great 
 State of New York a Workmen's Compensation Act to 
 supersede the present unsatisfactory and antiquated sys- 
 tem of accident litigation. In this respect our laws are 
 behind both the practice of other states and countries and 
 the humanitarian and ethical spirit of the age. There is 
 absolutely no doubt whatever that the citizens of New 
 York, irrespective of party, desire to wipe out this 
 reproach. There is no doubt that in the near future this 
 desire will be realized. We, too, recognize, as well as our 
 fellow-citizens in other States, that justice demands that 
 in case of injury to a workman in hazardous occupations, 
 the community which enjoys the product should indemnify 
 the unfortunate workman for the injury he has sustained 
 in the process of making that product. 
 
 LIBERAL ATTITUDE OF THE UNITED STATES 
 SUPREME COURT. 
 
 The only difference of opinion that can possibly arise 
 is as to the best method of securing that social and indus- 
 trial legislation on the desirability of which the general 
 public is already agreed. 
 
 There is one simple solution of the difficulty which is 
 always passed over in silence by the Catastrophic Pro- 
 gressives who would revolutionize our courts. They de- 
 nounce the courts in certain States, and notably in the 
 State of New York, as hostile to industrial and social 
 legislation. On the other hand, the attitude of the 
 Supreme Court of the United States towards this subject is 
 declared to be progressive, sympathetic, and entirely satis- 
 factory to the advocates of social reform. Indeed, Mr. Ran- 
 som, in his authoritative work in support of the Recall of 
 Judicial Decisions, declares that this measure is only an 
 effort "to bring laggard State courts of ultimate appeal up 
 
 44 
 
to the progressive standards set by the Nation's great 
 Court." And he adds that "if you do not agree with those 
 standards your quarrel is with Chief Justice White and 
 his colleagues," and not with the advocates of the Judicial 
 Recall. 
 
 STRICTER ATTITUDE OF STATE COURTS. 
 
 Now there is an easy way of bringing these so-called 
 "laggard State courts" up to the standard set by the Su- 
 preme Court of the Nation. That way is by an amendment 
 of the Federal Judiciary Act, providing that when a State 
 court decides that a State law is not a valid exercise of the 
 police power, but a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment 
 of the Federal Constitution, an appeal may be taken to 
 the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 State courts, or some State courts, are to-day stricter in 
 their attitude towards State laws on social and industrial 
 subjects attacked on federal grounds than the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. But in 1789, when the Federal 
 Judiciary Act was adopted, the attitude of the state courts 
 toward State laws attacked as violating Federal rights was 
 just the reverse. At that time of fervent devotion to State 
 rights there was a general presumption that the State 
 courts would sustain such state laws. On that account the 
 Federal Judiciary Act made provision for appeals to the 
 Supreme Court of the United States only in cases in which 
 State laws attacked on Federal grounds were declared by 
 the State courts to be valid; and as this legislation is still 
 in force there is to-day no appeal to the Supreme Court 
 of the United States in case where a State court decides 
 against the validity of a State law on the ground of repug- 
 nancy to the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United 
 States. 
 
 PROVIDE APPEAL FROM STATE COURTS TO 
 FEDERAL SUPREME COURT. 
 
 Here, then, is a simple method of bringing the so-called 
 "laggard State courts" up to the level of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States in their attitude towards social and 
 industrial legislation. Nothing is needed but an amend- 
 ment of Section 237 of the Federal Judicial Code, provid- 
 ing that an appeal may be taken to the Supreme Court, 
 
 45 
 
where the highest State court holds a State law invalid on 
 the ground that it violates the Due Process of Law provi- 
 sions of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Federal Con- 
 stitution. 
 
 This is a natural and normal development of our consti- 
 tutional law. If adopted it would speedily put an end to 
 that "outworn social philosophy" of the judges of the State 
 courts which has been so eloquently denounced by the ad- 
 vocates of Judicial Eecall. But, of course, there is nothing 
 spectacular or sensational in this legal reform. A sensible 
 and rational measure, it does not lend itself to purposes 
 of agitation. But it would enable us to get the social and 
 industrial legislation demanded by the common-sense and 
 conscience of the people of the State of New York, and it 
 would enable us to get it without revolutionary change in 
 our judicial system. 
 
 IF NECESSAKY AMEND STATE CONSTITUTION. 
 
 The Supreme Court of the United States, it has been 
 stated, has been more liberal than the courts of our own 
 State in dealing with new social and industrial legislation. 
 What shall we do if appeal to the Supreme Court is not 
 opened up to us in this class of legislation, when our State 
 courts hold a State law to be invalid because violative of 
 the Fourteenth Amendment? The radical reformers tell 
 us we can do nothing better than accept Judicial Eecall. 
 
 But why should court decisions be submitted to popular 
 vote? It is alleged that the courts do not respond to popu- 
 lar sentiment, and the judges are behind the times in their 
 social philosophy. AYell, the courts are not established 
 to respond to passing sentiment, but to declare the eter- 
 nal principles of justice; and if the judges have old- 
 fashioned philosophies, it is well to remember that neither 
 the Decalogue nor the Golden Rule is of yesterday, and 
 that a doctrine is not necessarily true because it is new, 
 nor a theory of society absurd because it is old. If, how- 
 ever, decisions of the courts on social and industrial ques- 
 tions — decisions based on the State constitution — are out 
 of harmony with the most enlightened moral ideas of the 
 age, is it not clear that what is needed is an adaptation 
 of the Constitution to the ethical conceptions and dictates 
 of twentieth century Americans? Tlie old way of reform 
 
 46 
 
in sucli cases is to amend the Constitution. This has 
 worked admirably for four generations. Why should we 
 suddenly resolve to abandon it now? 
 
 Is it objected this will all take time? Certainly it will. 
 All reforms take time. You cannot have the millennium 
 while you wait. But it will not take undue or unreasonable 
 time, and when the constitutional amendment is adopted 
 the legislature will have power to act not only on one bill, 
 but on all bills of a similar character. 
 
 JUDICIAL RECALL SUBVERSIVE OP OUR CONSTI- 
 TUTIONAL GOVERNMENT. 
 
 I do not dwell either upon the enormous demands 
 which the Recall of Decisions would make upon the voters 
 of the State, or the confusion it would introduce into our 
 jurisprudence. But I must point out that if the Recall of 
 Decisions is once authorized in reference to one subject — 
 say, the police power of tlie State, as has been proposed — ■ 
 there can be no doubt that it will be extended gradually to 
 other subjects, and possibly to all. Already supporters 
 of the policy are advocating its application not only to 
 State courts, but to the Supreme Court of the United 
 States, and that not only in matters involving the exercise 
 of the police power, but also to decisions involving those 
 great constitutional guarantees, which are the protection 
 alike of individuals and minorities. You see, therefore, 
 that by the Recall of Judicial Decisions, in the heat of po- 
 litical or partisan passion, under the leadership of some 
 magnetic agitator, the very foundations of our Republican 
 government might be completely swept away. 
 
 A GOVERNMENT OF SPECIAL INSTANCES. 
 
 In Great Britain Parliament is omnipotent. The plen- 
 titude of the people's power dwells in it. There is nothing 
 it cannot do, even to the abolition of the House of Lords 
 or the House of Commons or the Parliament itself. There 
 is no written constitution restraining it. On the other 
 hand, we Americans live under written constitutions. We 
 believe our rights and liberties better protected under a 
 written constitution, which lays down fundamental rules 
 and inviolable guarantees. 
 
You may take either the American system or the Eng- 
 lish system. You may have either a written constitution 
 or no written constitution. But you make a travesty of 
 government when you solemnly adopt a constitution, with 
 its fundamental principles and guarantees, and then set 
 it aside in any particular case to gratify some specific de- 
 sire or accomplish some expedient purpose. It was not 
 necessary for you to have made a general rule of conduct 
 to be obligatory upon your specific acts. But having made 
 the rule it is monstrous that you should break it. If you 
 have adopted a general rule of action applicable to all 
 cases, you cannot do what you like in any particular case. 
 A government under a written constitution, which may be 
 set aside whenever a temporary majority, excited by some 
 partisan issue, votes to make an exception, as it is the most 
 irrational, is likely in practice to prove the worst and the 
 most despotic of all governments. For it is government 
 by arbitrary discrimination. Though it retains the form of 
 a constitutional limitation, it is, as Dean Thayer, of the 
 Harvard Law School, has pointed out, binding only to 
 such an extent and in favor of such persons as the major- 
 ity of voters may choose. 
 
 Every time a law is made valid by a majority of the 
 electorate, which the court had declared invalid because 
 unconstitutional, a step is taken in the direction of sub- 
 verting the entire constitution. The time might come 
 when, in contempt of the constitution, an excited political 
 party would legally forbid the freedom of speech and of 
 writing or the free practice of religion, or deny a fair trial 
 to an unpopular citizen whom the majority had already in 
 their own minds condemned. The citizen would have no 
 rights which a legislature backed by a popular majority 
 would be bound to respect. 
 
 INALIENABLE RIGHTS. 
 
 The time to cry halt is now — at the very beginning. 
 We must inflexibly refuse to take a single step in the di- 
 rection of Judicial Recall. We will not put any of our 
 constitutional rights in peril. "All men," says the Declara- 
 tion of Independence, "are endow^ed by their Creator with 
 inalienable rights. Governments are instituted to secure 
 those rights." Those rights existed before all govern- 
 
 48 
 
merits; those rights will outlive all governments. They 
 are not derived from a majority of votes; they are the 
 free gift of God. Majorities cannot dispose of them; they 
 are forever inalienable. It is those rights which render 
 inviolable the weakest individual, the smallest minority, or 
 the most despised religious denomination. Of those rights 
 the Constitution is at once the formal expression and the 
 inviolable guarantee. 
 
 THE PROBLEM OP TO-DAY. 
 
 I have been outlining a program of reform, but a re- 
 form by constitutional and evolutionary methods. I am 
 opposed to the catastrophic and revolutionary methods 
 which are being commended to the public not only by po- 
 litical agitators, but also by ardent and courageous, though 
 all too impatient, reformers. 
 
 I am confident, however, that the overw^helming major- 
 ity of American citizens desire to walk in the old ways, 
 though they also desire and insist that the old ways shall 
 be repaired and improved. We Americans have the best 
 Constitution and the best institutions in the world. The 
 problem before us is to make the actual operation of gov- 
 ernment, both in the Nation and in the States, as good as 
 its organic law and framework. 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY GETTING READY. 
 
 No political party can give an honest, efficient and 
 satisfactory administration of public affairs save under 
 three conditions. In the first place, the party must stand 
 on sound principles. Secondly, in applying those princi- 
 ples the party must be governed by the law of progress, 
 with its corollary of adaptation to twentieth century con- 
 ditions. And, thirdly, the agents and representatives 
 whom the party selects for carrying out its policies must 
 be men of good ability, of high character, of unselfish de- 
 votion to the public good, and of tried or presumed capac- 
 ity for public service. 
 
 For two generations, barring only a few years, the Re- 
 publican Party has administered the government of the 
 United States. That fact alone may, I think, be fairly re- 
 garded as evidence of the soundness of its principles, the 
 
 49 
 
progressive nature of its policies, and the general intelli- 
 gence, capacity and character of its leaders and agents in 
 legislation and administration. 
 
 Nor should any one be surprised that, after all these 
 years of Kepublican administration, the people decided in 
 1912 to give the Democratic Party some experience — even 
 though it should be a short experience — in the business of 
 government ! A term in opposition at Washington cannot 
 but have the best effects on the Republican Party, They 
 will have time to meditate on their principles, to formu- 
 late their policies, to select their leaders, to compose their 
 differences and to consecrate themselves anew to high and 
 unselfish public service. In so far as banishment from 
 office may be regarded as punishment at the hands of the 
 public, it may be reasonably expected, like chastisement 
 and tribulation in general, to produce in the party the 
 peaceable fruits of righteousness. And in 1914 and in 1916 
 Republicans will be once more ready to assume the respon- 
 sibilities of government. 
 
 DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT IN NEW YORK 
 
 STATE. 
 
 In the State of New York the Republican Party has 
 been in opposition for the last three years. But whatever 
 the advantages to the party itself of this temporary release 
 from the responsibilities of office, it has been at a fearful 
 cost to our State. Compare with the pledges and prom- 
 ises of the Democratic Party the record which they have 
 actually made. The New York Civil Service Reform As- 
 sociation has declared "the Civil Service Law in the State 
 has continued to be an administration of unredeemed 
 pledges and violation of faith with the people." And this 
 criticism only particularizes the more general verdict of 
 the people on the results of three years of Democratic ad- 
 ministration. Does not every one know what that popular 
 verdict is? Is it not that it has been a period of violated 
 party pledges, of colossal public extravagance, of incapa- 
 ble and perverted government, and, worst of all, of crying 
 dishonor to the State and cruel humiliation to all its citi- 
 zens? The touch of Tammany has blighted our entire 
 State government. 
 
 50 
 
A GOVERNMENT BY TAMMANY. 
 
 That, gentlemen, is the secret of the failure of the 
 Democratic Party in the State of New York. It is a Tam- 
 manyized Party. The ruler of Tammany Hall is the boss 
 of the State government. The Democratic Party cannot 
 do better than it has done, because it is under Tammany 
 inspiration, management and control. And there is no pos- 
 sibility of its escape from Tammany domination. Hon- 
 orable and patriotic Democrats protest against this mis- 
 use and abuse by Tammany of the party name and the 
 party organization, but their protests avail nothing to 
 change the actual situation. The Democratic Party in the 
 State of New York is and remains a Tammanyized Party. 
 The inner circle have, indeed, quarreled among themselves, 
 and they are disclosing facts — facts as amazing as they are 
 discreditable — which it would otherwise have been difficult 
 for the public to ascertain. But in spite of this rupture 
 and these revelations Tammany remains entrenched in the 
 State government and dominant in the Democratic Party. 
 
 THE REPUBLICAN PARTY TO REDEEM THE 
 
 STATE. 
 
 The first duty of all good citizens is to break the grip 
 of Tammanj' on the State government. Now, in the Re- 
 publican Party, and in the Republican Party alone, the 
 people of the State of New York have an agency to accom- 
 plish that task. I have already described the policies now 
 incumbent on the party and the fonvard look and the 
 progressive spirit in which they are to be carried out and 
 the sort of candidates who must be selected for that pur- 
 pose. The Republican Party in the State of New York is 
 going to regain and retain public confidence by its plat- 
 form, by its spirit, and by its standard-bearers. Already 
 many of those who left us in 1912 have returned. I believe 
 that, with few exceptions, all of them will soon be standing 
 under the old banner. Progressive Republicanism, with 
 its constitutional and evolutionary methods, will be found 
 to provide for all that is reasonably essential in their 
 creed. And as these old members of the family return to 
 the old party home we shall give them a cordial welcome. 
 At the same time we invite to join with us all those pa- 
 
 51 
 
triotic Democrats who are disgusted with the Tammany 
 regime, and also that great body of Independents, who 
 think little of names and parties, but much of men and 
 principles. All these must recognize that only through the 
 Republican Party is there political salvation for our State. 
 
 How best to accomplish the State's redemption is the 
 supreme question before this Convention. There is no 
 more important first step than the nomination of strong 
 candidates for judges to fill the vacancies in the Court of 
 Appeals, which is the primary object of your assembling. 
 
 Gentlemen, I will no longer detain you from the high 
 duties to which you are called. Only, as a life-long Re- 
 publican, I desire to express not merely my hope, but my 
 confident expectation, that those duties will be performed 
 in a way conducive to the highest welfare of the State, and, 
 therefore, also, conducive to the best interests of the Re- 
 publican Party. 
 
 52 
 
Address of Hon. Elihu Root, Permanent 
 
 Chairman. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Convention : I thank you with all 
 my heart for the kindly act and the cordial expression 
 which have made me Chairman of this Convention, and 
 greeted me as its Chairman in my old home. (Applause.) 
 
 It is a full forty years that I have been trying to do 
 my part as a Republican in every place from folding and 
 bunching and distributing tickets up step by step in every 
 place where service, could be rendered to the party, and I 
 hope to continue the effort of service so long as life is 
 spared me. (Cheers.) Many an old friend of earlier days 
 has passed away ; nearly all the men who Avere fighting the 
 battles of the Republican party in those da^'s have gone, 
 but the Republican party with its principles and its devo- 
 tion to the cause of free government continues and will 
 continue. (Applause.) You cannot change its character, 
 for its character was formed in the sternest of conflicts. 
 You cannot change its name, for its name is sanctified by 
 the memory of great and good men who have given their 
 lives to their countrv and bv the achievement of great 
 things for the country and for humanity. (Applause and 
 cheers. ) 
 
 But it is not my purpose to inflict upon you a speech. 
 We have too much to do in this short evening to occupy 
 the time with more words from me. I am readv to stand 
 upon that admirable exposition of sound Republican doc- 
 trine which we heard from the lips of President Schur- 
 man this morning. (Applause.) I endorse it as you en- 
 dorse it, as the Republicans of the State will endorse it, 
 and as the majority of the voters will endorse it in Novem- 
 ber. (Api)lause and cheers.) I wish, however, before tak- 
 ing my seat to emphasize tAvo things. One is the vast im- 
 portance of the election. The election of judges does not 
 ordinarily excite the interest that is felt in the election of 
 executive and legislative officers, yet at this time under 
 all the circumstances of the shifting opinions and the 
 varied current of popular feeling; at this time when all 
 
 53 
 
settled questions are being unsettled and reconsidered; at 
 this time when what we had believed to be the very foun- 
 dations of justice are being shaken, the election of judges 
 of the highest court of the greatest State of the Union is 
 of greater importance than the election of any Governor 
 or any Legislature. Governors come and go. If they are 
 bad they are not re-elected. Legislatures come and go. 
 If they fail in their duty others take their place. Under- 
 lying our whole system of peace and order and security and 
 opportunity ; underlying the safety of the poor man in his 
 home as truly as the security of the rich man's property is 
 the independence, the honor, the authority of the judiciary 
 of our State. (Applause.) The Eepublican party has al- 
 ways sounded the clear note of fidelity and devotion to the 
 underlying principle of government by law and not govern- 
 ment by men, government by principle and not govern- 
 ment by impulse; and such a government as in all its his- 
 tory the Eepublican party has maintained can be contin- 
 ued only by preserving the independence of the courts and 
 the respect of our people for the administration of law 
 through the courts. ( Applause. ) 
 
 The other thing I wish to emphasize is the peculiar 
 condition of the politics and government of our State aris- 
 ing from the enormous growth of the city of New York. The 
 city has grown so great that the organization which con- 
 trols the Democratic party in the city needs only a little 
 added support to control the Democratic party of the State. 
 Tammany Hall has obtained that additional support; she 
 has found in the State outside of New York assistance, helx)- 
 ers, adherents, of the same character as Tammany Hall it- 
 self. Tammany is no longer a local issue; she has grasped 
 at the control of the State; she controls the Democratic 
 party of the State; she controls the State Committee of 
 the Democratic party ; she is about to name the Democratic 
 candidates for judicial office, and she reaches out her hand 
 to control that great court upon which the protection of 
 our liberty depends. 
 
 It has been my fortune, or misfortune, to be much away 
 from our State of recent years; and I cannot express to 
 you the sense of shame and humiliation, the deep indigna- 
 tion and resentment that I have felt as I have read from 
 day to day in the newspapers and heard from day to day by 
 word of mouth wliat disgrace has been inflicted upon our 
 
 54 
 
beloved State by having the character of Tammany Hall 
 impressed upon its government. It is to Tammany that we 
 are to look for the cause of the dreadful condition revealed 
 in the police trials during the past year. It is to Tammany 
 that we are to look for the cause of the disgraceful condi- 
 tion at Albany — a condition in which everything appears to 
 have been forgotten except the vulgar squabbles of faction 
 over opportunities for graft and plunder, I would not — I 
 will not — say one word about the pending impeachment, 
 but I will say that there can be no possible outcome of the 
 impeachment trial, acquittal or conviction ; there can be no 
 possible view of the evidence under which the Democratic 
 party of the State controlled by Tammany Hall and im- 
 pressed with the character of that organization is not con- 
 victed. (Applause.) I do not care so much for the fact that 
 they have squandered millions of money that we have got to 
 paj' out of taxation, I do not care so much for the fact 
 that coming into power with promises of retrenchment and 
 economy they have increased the salary roll $1,900,000 a 
 year, but I do care that we have all been disgraced; that 
 the people of New York are lowered in the estimation of the 
 world, and that the enemies of popular free government 
 by the people have a new argument, and the friends of 
 popular free government by the people have a new explana- 
 tion and apology to make. 
 
 At the most vital point of our government, in the elec- 
 tion of Judges who are to stand against all corrupt and 
 overbearing officials — in our highest court at that vital 
 point — there is now presented to the people of New York 
 not only in tlie city but throughout the country an oppor- 
 tunity by their votes to say whether they will increase 
 the power and approve the stewardship of Tammanyized 
 democracy in our State or whether they will rebuke and 
 reject it. (Applause.) 
 
 So I say that this Convention has a more important 
 function to perform than any ordinary convention which 
 is called upon to nominate candidates for governor, for 
 state officers, or for all the rest of the government com- 
 bined. 
 
 55 
 
Address of Hon. Harold J. Hinman. 
 
 On the iDresentation of the report of the Committee 
 on Eesolutions, Harold J. Hinman, Kepublican minority 
 leader of the Assembly, spoke as follows : 
 
 The Eepublican party in its whole history as a govern- 
 ing agent has never had a greater obligation resting uiDon 
 it nor a larger opportunity to demonstrate that it is a 
 party fit to govern than at the present time. Great issues 
 dealing with the very fundamentals of our government 
 must be settled, testing whether we shall abide by the guar- 
 antee of our Federal Constitution that every State in the 
 Union shall retain a Republican, a representative form of 
 government or shall resort to the forms of pure democ- 
 racy ; whether our tariff policy of over half a century shall 
 be reversed; whether our methods of taxation, of banking 
 and of the handling of our currency shall be overturned; 
 whether the constitutional rights of the individual to life, 
 to liberty and to private property shall be rendered a farce 
 piece-meal by the recall of judicial decisions, or by other- 
 wise freeing any classes of our citizens from the just and 
 equal operation of the law because of their wealth, influ- 
 ence or the number of their votes ; whether all of our grave 
 political issues shall be determined soberly, sanely and 
 wisely upon the basis of underlying principle, or whether 
 we shall resort to panaceas and temporary expedients and 
 drift into the purely personal politics of Mexico. 
 
 The party which appeals to the ripe and sober judg- 
 ment of the people upon all of these issues, and thus be- 
 comes the conservative party, will adopt the policy of per- 
 manence and wisdom. The party which appeals to class 
 prejudice and self-interest or relies upon governmental 
 adventure instead of tried and sound principles, and thus 
 becomes the radical party, may win the temporary victory 
 of the accomplished and attractive exhorter, but cannot 
 succeed ultimately in providing the cure for which we are 
 seeking. The sole result must inevitably be the upheaval 
 attendant upon disorderly and revolutionary government. 
 
 What is it that is in the minds of the people of the 
 
 56 
 
United States that needs to be satisfied? Witli the major- 
 ity of them I believe it is an earnest and growing desire to 
 hasten our progress toward better, cleaner and more whole- 
 some conditions, socially, economically and politically. 
 They are not being led fast enough, and their confidence in 
 our present order of things has been so severely shaken 
 by the discovery of gross malfeasance and misfeasance in 
 office that even the fundamentals of our theory of govern- 
 ment are challenged and threatened in order to satisfy 
 their restlessness. In such a crisis the need is not for new 
 governmental machinery, but the hope of the future lies in 
 the moral strength of the community. Give us leaders and 
 not schemers; men of character in public life, not adven- 
 turers and self-seekers, men to whom an aroused public 
 may look with confidence as their prophets and guides 
 rather than as their hirelings. When we shall have digni- 
 fied public office by the election of such men to represent 
 us, we shall have demonstrated a higli sense of public mor- 
 ality, tested anew the inestimable value of representative 
 government and offered the highest inducements to public- 
 spirited men to enter the public service. There is no short 
 cut to the millennium. There is no system of government 
 which can protect the people from tlieir own indifference. 
 When the public demand a higher type of public officials, 
 that demand will be felt. Parties will respond to it. Tlie 
 right kind of men will be attracted to political life. Con- 
 fidence will be restored and respect for government will 
 prevail. 
 
 It is time for us to speak together as citizens and not 
 as mere partisans about things as they are. The party 
 which can be honest with itself and fair to its opponents 
 will be received as honest by the great majority of the 
 people. If we are honest with ourselves we must admit 
 that a majority of our citizens are by no means satisfied 
 with things as they are, but desire to see things improved. 
 It was this desire for better, cleaner and more wholesome 
 conditions, faster than the Republican party seemed able 
 or willing to progress, which contributed largely to the 
 vote against us in the last campaign. A failure to appre- 
 ciate and recognize this as true is not being honest with 
 ourselves. The new Eepublicanism must be borne by the 
 recognition of this fact as a prime requisite and must be 
 followed by more idealism, greater civic courage, more dis- 
 
 57 
 
interested handling of public problems for the good of 
 the whole people. The party which can demonstrate hon- 
 esty of thought, purpose and endeavor, which so acts that 
 its policies when inaugurated will be felt to be honestly 
 intended for the good of the whole people, is the kind of 
 party needed to-day, A party can do more for itself in 
 that way than by any artificial attempts at self-perpetua- 
 tion or the inauguration of policies with an eye to the 
 number of votes that may be cast at the coming election. 
 Even temporary defeat with the flag of honor flying at the 
 mast is better than a victory of expediency and insincerity. 
 
 Let us then be honest with ourselves, recognize our 
 shortcomings of the past and highly resolve to nominate 
 and appoint to public office only men of integrity and abil- 
 ity to promote higher endeavor, to help dethrone dishon- 
 esty and corruption in government, to discountenance and 
 punish it in our own midst as zealously as we would in 
 others, to be consistent in promise and fulfilment, to be 
 fair in our criticism of others, to generously recognize their 
 honest, forward administration of affairs — in short, to seek 
 first for what is right and honorable and only second for 
 what is expedient. 
 
 Why, in the name of truth and justice, should we not 
 commend President Wilson for the consistency with which 
 he is insisting that his party shall carry out the tariff 
 policy which it has so long professed, but never compelled 
 its representatives to practice? It is sufficient for us to 
 criticise the policy itself and let the result determine the 
 wisdom of the Democratic measure. Why should we not 
 commend the straightforward and orderly way in which 
 President Wilson has thus far proceeded to negotiate the 
 business of his office? To do so is but fair and puts a 
 premium on orderly and honest, forward administration. 
 It encourages men of character and ability to enter pub- 
 lic life. It encourages weaker public officials to emulate 
 the example and tends to raise the whole moral tone of 
 government. 
 
 If the Democratic party in this State had been domi- 
 nated by such a strong and wholesome force there might 
 not have been much to criticise, but the fact is that the con- 
 duct of affairs here has been so disorderly that the de- 
 moralization of our State government is appalling. The 
 State has never been so humiliated in all its history. Its 
 
 58 
 
climax is reached to-day when we witness an impeachment 
 trial, not brought in good faith for any patriotic purpose 
 but as a convenient weapon of revenge. It is a great temp- 
 tation for either party to wash the dirty linen of the other 
 party, but we seldom find such an enterprise started by a 
 party member against his own party. To the credit of Gov- 
 ernor Sulzer, be it said in all fairness, he removed a higli- 
 way commissioner who was indirectly, if not directly, re- 
 sponsible for grossly corrupt administration of highway 
 affairs, that he strengthened the department by the ap- 
 pointment of Mr. Carlisle, and that, whatever his motive 
 may have been, he insisted upon the enforcement of the 
 criminal law against those who had profited by the high- 
 way scandals, which have been a tremendous detriment to 
 our good roads movement, and which were the real disgrace 
 of the last administration. To his credit be it said that, 
 whatever his motive, these activities of Governor Sulzer 
 were against the forces of evil, the most corrupt power in 
 the country, Tammany Hall ; and it was these activities in 
 which he persisted against threats and entreaties which 
 lead directly to his impeachment. 
 
 Most of those of us who opposed the impeachment took 
 the position that it was our duty to protect the dignity of 
 the high office of Governor, and thus of the State. We 
 pleaded for ample opportunity to read and reflect upon the 
 evidence. We asked that the Frawley Committee report 
 be referred to the Judiciary Committee, with instructions 
 to that committee to examine the law and the precedents 
 and to hold such further hearings as the solemnity of the 
 function demanded. We moved to postpone consideration 
 of the impeachment resolution for one week. But all of 
 our motions were savagely attacked and defeated. The 
 Frawley Committee report was approved actually without 
 giving the members a moment's opportunity to read either 
 the report or the evidence upon which it was based. 
 
 To impeach the Governor without notice, without de- 
 liberation, without giving ample opportunity to every mem- 
 ber to become convinced in his own mind of the truth of 
 the charges, was a monstrous perversion of the process of 
 impeachment. The public sense of fairness has revolted 
 against the despicable conduct of that night's proceedings. 
 In truth, the people so despise Tammany and are so keenly 
 outraged by its base motive to impeach the Governor for 
 
 59 
 
his virtues instead of his sins that the indications point to 
 their possible approval of a verdict by the Court of Im- 
 peachment of innocent though proven guilty. But even if 
 so extraordinary a result should be attained, it is my firm 
 conviction that the people are also bound to judge Mr. Sul- 
 zer as a man upon the truth or falsity of his oath as to 
 campaign receipts and expenditures and upon the truth or 
 falsity of the claim that he converted campaign subscrip- 
 tions to private use. The truth which will be borne in the 
 public mind by the revelation of such a distressing fact 
 must inevitably lead to taking suitable measures to guard 
 against the repetition of such evil practices and to elect 
 men to offlce who are above suspicion and beyond reproach. 
 
 It is well that we should consider this at this time not 
 only because of the pending impeachment trial, but because 
 that trial, together with the Cohalan and Stillwell trials, 
 are bound to rise uppermost in the public mind in the con- 
 sideration of the doctrine of the Recall as a substitute for 
 the present method of impeachment. The impeachment of 
 Governor Sulzer, without the examination of any evidence, 
 by the same forces which exonerated Stillwell and Cohalan 
 may make the process of impeachment appear to be a farce. 
 But what is the remedy? Are we going to permit the 
 voters to hide their selfish or partisan motives behind the 
 secrecy of the ballot by the adoption of the Recall? Are 
 we going to make it less desirable for courageous men, of 
 convictions and character, to enter public life by subjecting 
 them to such insidious public ignominy? The remedy is 
 not the adoption of the Recall, but by the improvement of 
 the character and fitness of our representatives charged 
 with the duty of impeaching and trying impeachments. 
 A calm and deliberate impeachment and trial after a fair 
 and honest inquiry into the facts by an Assembly and 
 Senate made up of men of such known integrity and honor 
 as to inspire confidence, the kind of confidencr" which the 
 people repose in our Court of Appeals, is the only solu- 
 tion of this grave question. The difficulty is not in the 
 process, but in the character of the men chosen to execute 
 that process. The remedy is not in the subversion of the 
 system, but in the election of men of higher type as mem- 
 bers of the lesnslature. The weakness of the present im- 
 peachment is the lack of public confidence in the Assembly 
 and the Senate. Improve the character of both of tliese 
 
 r.o 
 
bodies to a degree consistent with the tremendous impor- 
 tance of their constitutional powers, both legislative and 
 political, and unlimited powers may be delegated to them 
 with safety. 
 
 The Republican party will do well to oppose the Recall, 
 but to do so it must demostrate its sincerity by the nomina- 
 tion of the right type of men, particularly for the Legis- 
 lature, and then call upon the decent and intelligent public 
 to give the full measure of support which such a policy de- 
 serves. And in furtherance of this policy, it is our duty to 
 stand for an honest primary and election law, so that 
 proper representatives may be more easily nominated and 
 elected. 
 
 It is my judgment that better representatives can be 
 elected under either a convention system or a direct pri- 
 mary, provided either system be an honest and fair one, and 
 provided the public generally devote themselves more seri- 
 ously to politics. The people have no one else to blame than 
 themselves for the present unsatisfactory condition in pub- 
 lic affairs. Ko business can be run in anv such neglectful 
 manner, and no administration can be expected to advance 
 to a higher planethan the average public spirit of the elec- 
 torate. It is the experience of business men that employees 
 should not only be selected with care, but should not be 
 subjected to temptation to shirk or to be dishonest. It is 
 likewise the experience of governments that tlieir employees 
 should be selected with equal care and be kept under a 
 watchful eye lest weakness and opportunity should yield 
 to temptation. Instead of permitting our young men to 
 enter public life upon the supposition that it pays to be 
 crooked, we need to speed the day when it will be a mat- 
 ter of public recognition that it pays to be honest, and that 
 a man cannot select a better, cleaner, more wholesome oc- 
 cupation than in the public service. 
 
 It is the duty of the Republican party to encourage hon- 
 est service by its representatives in public life, to select 
 men first upon the basis of fitness and willingness to per- 
 form their official duties, and only second as a reward for 
 party service, to make it a rule of conduct to perform pub- 
 lic duties with an eye to the public w^elfare rather than 
 to party expediency. It is the duty of the Republican party 
 to use its best efforts to reform our primary and election 
 laws, to give to the voter an honest measure for the fullest 
 
 61 
 
self-expression and give every candidate a fair opportunity 
 to cope with every other candidate either in his party pri- 
 mary or at the election. Until that is done there will be 
 no cessation of the clamor for such reform, and there should 
 be none. We have never had an honest and fair conven- 
 tion system, and we have not to-day an honest and fair di- 
 rect nomination system. I am frank to confess that I have 
 not lost my confidence in the convention system. I believe 
 it is the abuse of it which has brought it into disfavor. 
 However that may be, we have undertaken to experiment 
 with the direct primary, and I am satisfied that we should 
 give it a fair and genuine trial. 
 
 We have no genuine direct nominations law at the pres- 
 ent time. We all know it. Under the name of reform, 
 aimed at the bosses, this State has imposed statutory boss- 
 ism upon the voters of all parties. Although the theory of 
 direct nominations was that every advantage to organiza- 
 tion should be removed, under the present law the voters 
 of a party are compelled to surrender to existing party 
 committees the right to perpetuate themselves, the right to 
 name the official primary ticket by committee designation, 
 the right to the exclusive use of the party emblem on the 
 primary ballot, the right to have the first or preferential 
 column for committee candidates, the exclusive right to use 
 the party funds, and in addition an almost prohibitive num- 
 ber of signatures are required upon independent petitions. 
 In other words, the committees are permitted to make the 
 regular nominations, and then those nominations are 
 hedged round about with all kinds of fortifications which 
 it is almost impossible to surmount. 
 
 No man is entitled to call himself the regular candi- 
 date under the theory of direct nominations. Every candi- 
 date running for the same office should come in on the 
 same level with every other candidate. The organization 
 is entitled only to the numerical strength of its supporters. 
 To permit it to designate the regular candidate, to have 
 the exclusive right to use the party emblem, the first col- 
 umn or any preferential place on the ballot, the party 
 funds, or to have any other preference is certainly an un- 
 fair discrimination. 
 
 The Republican members of the Legislature stood firmly 
 for all these reforms throughout both the regular and ex- 
 traordinary sessions. Our efforts were defeated in every 
 
 62 
 
instance by the Democratic majority. The election 
 and primary law has been left practically untouched, due 
 to the unwillingness of the Democratic majority to amend 
 in any intelligent or honest respect, and the uncompromis- 
 ing attitude of the Governor in refusing to accept Kepub- 
 lican votes upon the only basis of honorable compromise 
 open to them, namely, the retention of the State convention 
 in accordance with the distinct Republican platform 
 pledge. Our posititon was a clean-cut and honest one. I 
 even introduced in the extraordinary session a bill which 
 was word for word identical with the Governor's bill, with 
 the exception of abolishing the State convention, and 
 caused to be introduced a bill providing for a preferential 
 primary for State officers with pledged delegates to the 
 State convention, but the Governor would not permit the 
 compromise. 
 
 The attitude of the Governor indicates that he wanted 
 an issue and not a real direct primary law. We asked 
 him to correct the vicious features of the present system 
 and submit to the people this fall the issue of the retention 
 or abolishment of the State canvention, because our pledge 
 distinctly bound us upon that subject. We are now met 
 in convention, and we submit that the question is at issue in 
 the State, and we ask you for further instructions. Even 
 those who want to see the State convention eliminated can- 
 not help admiring our manly stand in conformity with our 
 platform, which is better than all the temporary applause 
 obtained by truckling to cheap and disorderly popularity. 
 It was not our duty to question the wisdom of the distinct 
 pledge we had made to the people. It was our duty to abide 
 by that pledge, to encourage confidence in our fidelity and 
 to await the decision of this convention as to whether we 
 shall change our attitude in the session of 1914. To do 
 otherwise was to be disorderly as well as dishonest, and 
 would have served only to intensify the feeling in the pub- 
 lic mind already too prevalent that platforms mean nothing 
 but empty pretence. 
 
 The Republican minority has made an earnest effort 
 throughout the session to take a positive rather than a 
 negative position. We have tried to be right rather than 
 strive for disorderly popularity. We have tried to be cour- 
 ageous and not cowardly and to give meaning and char- 
 acter to the Republican party in order that when victory 
 
 63 
 
 mumm 
 
comes it will be a victory of intelligence. We tried to im- 
 prove our legislative methods through a legislative investi- 
 gation. We made an effort to improve the quality of legis- 
 lation by the passage of a bill substituting a corps of legis- 
 lative experts in the place of inexperienced and almost use- 
 less assistants under our present method. We offered 
 amendments to the rules intended to invite the utmost pub- 
 lic confidence by opening committee sessions to the public 
 view and compelling the votes of the committeemen to be 
 entered upon the journal. We likewise endeavored to pro- 
 vide for the establishment of the budget system in the ad- 
 ministration of State finance. We introduced and fought 
 for the passage of bills to carry out the pledges of the Re- 
 publican platform. All of our measures were defeated by 
 the Democratic majority. 
 
 We are proud to compare this record of honest and 
 straightforward endeavor with the record of the Demo- 
 cratic administration, which entered upon its duties with a 
 pious declaration in favor of rigid economy and a greater 
 degree of efficiency, and which now must apologize for a 
 tremendous increase in appropriations and a demoraliza- 
 tion never known before in this State. 
 
 The State's credit was made to suffer by the wanton at- 
 tempt to raid the sinking funds in order to pretend to the 
 taxpayers that the burden of taxation had been lightened. 
 The result was that the Comptroller found himself unable 
 to market the bonds of the State at 41/0 per cent, interest, 
 and was obliged to sell the State's notes for |27,000,000 
 at a higher rate of interest to meet pressing obligations for 
 highway and canal construction. 
 
 The new Department of Efficiency and Economy is cost- 
 ing the State an appropriation of $275,000, exclusive of the 
 125,000 allowed it for its free text-book investigation, in- 
 formation as to which could have been obtained from the 
 Education Department without cost. This department 
 serves no useful purpose, has been inefficiently organized, 
 is a gross extravangance rather than an economy. 
 
 The State capitol repairs have become a notorious scan- 
 dal. The estimated waste to date is half a million dollars. 
 The Democratic majority defeated a bill introduced by the 
 Republicans requiring these repairs to be completed by 
 competitive contract, which would have eliminated fur- 
 ther waste and brought about a speedier completion of the 
 
 64 
 
work, which lias already cost over three millions of dol- 
 lars. This has been recommended by the American Insti- 
 tute of Architects, the Committee of Inquiry, the Executive 
 Auditor and by the Governor, but to no avail, save that the 
 State Architect has now begun advertising for bids, on 
 some portions of the work, leaving Callanan and Prescott 
 "still on the job." 
 
 The Public Service Commissions organized under Gov- 
 ernor Hughes and Eepublican rule, which have been copied 
 as a model in many other States, are demoralized, due to 
 the failure of Democratic administrations under Governor 
 Dix and Governor Sulzer to appreciate their vast impor- 
 tance and the necessity to appoint non-partisan and non- 
 political commissioners, who measure up to the qualifica- 
 tions expected when the salary was made |15,000 a year, 
 and which the best interests of the service absolutely re- 
 quire. 
 
 The present State Board of Tax Commissioners has been 
 denounced as incompetent by the New York Tax Reform 
 Association. 
 
 The Labor Department, reorganized this year at an in- 
 creased cost of half a million dollars, has been for months 
 without a responsible head and is demoralized in conse- 
 quence of the quarrel between Democratic factions over 
 the patronage of the department. 
 
 Claimants all over the State are complaining because 
 the Board of Claims, which w^as created in 1911 by the 
 abolishment of the State Court of Claims, in order to make 
 offices for Democrats, is whollv unable to take care of its 
 business and is years behind with its work. Moreover, the 
 veto by Governor Sulzer of an appropriation of |250,000 
 to settle judgments against the State already granted by 
 the Board of Claims defers for a year the payment of the 
 State's acknowledged debts. 
 
 The Governor's veto of the |600,000 appropriation for 
 the elimination of grade crossings has checked important 
 and much-needed improvements. 
 
 Our overcrowded prisons have reached a condition 
 shocking to the conscience of the State, and yet there has 
 been an unwarranted cessation of work on new prisons 
 begun under Republican administration in anticipation of 
 approaching necessity for larger and more modern accom- 
 modations. 
 
 65 
 
One of the clearest evidences of the lack of plan and 
 foresight, of the absence of settled policy and of the general 
 disorderly conduct of the present Democratic administra- 
 tion, has been the manner in which both Houses of the 
 Legislature have utterly failed to comprehend the dignity 
 of their functions, to recognize the seriousness of the busi- 
 ness of the State or even to start the sessions of the Houses 
 within hours of the time appointed for convening. It has 
 become the settled practice for the Legislature to appoint 
 eleven o'clock as the hour for convening, keep the members 
 waiting from two to twelve hours before calling them to or- 
 der, without giving them an inkling of the reason for the 
 delay. This lack of discipline and orderly procedure has 
 been completely demoralizing. 
 
 An examination of the legislation passed and approved 
 by the Governor demonstrates clearly the lack of intelligent 
 system, for we find a number of laws which have been 
 passed by the Legislature and received Executive approval 
 which have nullified laws passed earlier in the session by 
 the amendment of the same sections of the Consolidated 
 Laws without embracing the text of the earlier amend- 
 ments. No excuse can be offered for such reckless ineffi- 
 ciency. 
 
 The maladministration of the highway affairs has been 
 conceded by everybody. The Republican demand for a re- 
 turn to a non-political highway commission as originally 
 created under Governor Hughes and abolished under Gov- 
 ernor Dix, was denied. In the face of vigorous Republican 
 protest the department was reorganized with a single- 
 headed commission. Owing to the quarrel between the 
 Governor and his party in the Legislature no highway com- 
 missioner was named until early Summer. Meanwhile 
 nothing was done, and the highways of the State suffered 
 in consequence. The new commissioner had hardly as- 
 sumed office when the factional quarrel over patronage 
 broke out afresh. The result was that the Highway De- 
 partment remained utterly demoralized, and when the Gov- 
 ernor started to punish by criminal prosecution those en- 
 gaged in corruption he was so hastily and audaciously 
 impeached as to shock the public sense of fairness. 
 
 I believe the time has come to break away from the 
 artificiality of personal controversy in which everything is 
 subordinated to the motive to "get" somebody and to begin 
 
 66 
 
to seriously consider issues and not men, orderly govern- 
 ment and not patronage. Those who stand for the kind 
 of government which culminated in the impeachment of 
 Governor Sulzer may linger for a time, but from the 
 wounds of August 12, 1913, they will never recover. This 
 is my prediction, and if the impeachment accomplishes no 
 other purpose, it will be an instrument of good government. 
 If, in the midst of the frenzy which it has caused for the 
 moment, there is a party which can keep cool and deliber- 
 ate, and calmly strive to lead the people of this State in the 
 path of "progress with order," which was the most signifi- 
 cant declaration of our Rochester platform in 1912, that 
 party will be entitled to the confidence and support of every 
 voter, irrespective of his party affiliations. It is my earnest 
 hope that the Republican party, with new courage and 
 idealism, may be called upon to be that instrument, to bring 
 order out of chaos, to heighten respect for government, 
 and to educate the people to a greater moral responsibility. 
 
 67 
 
Address of Hon. Charles S. Whitman. 
 
 The Senate Chamber at Albany offers a spectacle to the 
 people of this State and of this Nation, of which we are 
 not altogether proud, but which, nevertheless, to-day is 
 impressive and is instructive. Whatever may be the mer- 
 its of the controversy, however unworthy may have been 
 the motives which prompted the actions of those respon- 
 sible for the present proceeding, whatever lack there may 
 have been of dignity and decorum, and even of sincerity, 
 on the part of the popular legislative body of this State 
 which brought the indictment, throughout New York to- 
 day there is manifest confidence, trust and faith that the 
 People of the State of New York are going to be treated 
 fairly and that the man, whom the people have elected 
 Governor of the State of New York, is going to be treated 
 fairly, that justice and right and law are going to prevail, 
 that the truth is going to come out, that after all it is a 
 matter of little concern to the People of the State who 
 brings these charges, but it is a matter of vital concern 
 that it should be determined whether these charges be true 
 or not. Whatever suspicion may have existed in the pub- 
 lic mind as to the integrity of the Court of Impeachment, 
 which, in the last analysis must pass upon this case, seems 
 to have been dis]ielled, and the very fact that ten millions 
 of people at a time like this are confident that the men, a 
 small minority of the Court of Impeachment, whom they 
 have elevated to the Bench of the Court of Appeals, are go- 
 ing to dominate and control and act as their consciences 
 direct them to act, and in accordance with the law of this 
 State, is no mean tribute to a tribunal which from its 
 organization has held itself not only above corruption, but 
 above suspicion, too. The presence of the Presiding Jus- 
 tice, creating by his very being there the atmosphere in 
 which the trial is proceeding, and who embodies and rep- 
 resents in himself all that is great in the traditions of the 
 American Bench, justifies the conviction everywhere mani- 
 fested that no wrong can be done. 
 
 The People of the State are called upon this year to 
 
 68 
 
elect the membership in this historic Court, and the Re- 
 publican party, mindful of its most solemn duty, is by its 
 chosen representatives here assembled to offer to the Peo- 
 ple of its best, believing, as it does believe, that it has 
 among its members those wIk), by disposition and learning 
 and large experience, are the best fitted that can be found 
 within the boundaries of our State, to render to the People 
 the service and to perform the duties so well rendered and 
 so nobly performed by those who have gone before them. 
 
 The Republican party is needed in this Nation and in 
 this State. Its opportunity was never more manifest or 
 greater than now. Wliatever defeats it may have suffered, 
 whatever mist-akes it mav have made, however slow some 
 of its leaders may have been to respond to its best senti- 
 ment, its vast membership, its enthusiastic supporters .are 
 loyal to its traditions and are confident that in the end its 
 appeal to the people will not be in vain. It does not seek 
 to lay its hands upon the Judiciary; it does not ask those 
 whom it elevates to power to make office a political asset. 
 It asks no pledges of its candidates, but it pledges to them 
 its sup]X)rt and its abiding trust. It believes in the judge, 
 who sees neither friend nor foe, who, in the discharge 
 of his official dutj', recognizes neither gain nor loss to his 
 party or to himself. We have given such men to the serv- 
 ice of the State over and over again. We have united with 
 others to continue on the bench those who, during years 
 pf usefulness have demonstrated their patriotism and their 
 worth. The Republican party has never failed the people 
 in its selection of those who, in the last analysis, must in- 
 terpret and determine the law. 
 
 A defect in a system of jurisprudence is not demon- 
 strated by the failure of some official incumbent to per- 
 form his duty. Just what the expression "recall of 
 judges" or "recall of judicial decisions," may mean, de- 
 l^ends, it would seem, very largely upon the opinion of the 
 individual whom you may happen to hear advocating the 
 recall, and the time and the place of its advocacy, and it 
 is hardly fair to charge any one individual with the ex- 
 treme notions and doctrines advocated by the unreason- 
 ing, the overzealous and the selfseeking, for whom he may 
 be in no way responsible, but the Republican party has set 
 its face against any change in our system of jurisprudence, 
 which change would restrict or would hamper tlie free- 
 
 69 
 
dom and independence of the bench, or which would im- 
 pair the vitality of judicial decisions, or which would 
 render other than final the determinations on constitu- 
 tional questions of the nation's court of last resort. 
 
 We have no fear for the future of the Republican 
 party. It will win again because it will deserve to win. 
 Its leadership in the future will inspire popular respect 
 and confidence because it will deserve popular respect and 
 confidence. Those who, by instinct and training and char- 
 acter are naturally allied with us, will be found again 
 championing Republican principles and Republican can- 
 didates, because those principles and those candidates 
 will appeal to the sense and the patriotism of the best citi- 
 zenship of the land. 
 
 And tliis splendid gathering of our party to-night, 
 representing as it does a vast electorate desirous of better 
 things than we have seen during the few years past in 
 this Empire State, is something more than a mere conven- 
 tion, whose duty it is to designate candidates for the Court 
 of Appeals, serious, solemn and important as that duty is. 
 This is the public demonstration and declaration, if you 
 please, that whatever differences exist within our ranks, 
 and whatever contests may come at home, which must be 
 settled by our own members, we are undaunted and un- 
 afraid ; we are ready to welcome all who will support with 
 us the men and the measures in nation and in State, of 
 which all good citizens can approve, and that we are de- 
 termined to prove by the conduct of those whom we place 
 in power the sincerity of our belief in the doctrine enun- 
 ciated by a Republican president, years ago, "He serves his 
 party most who serves his country best." 
 
 70 
 
ylord Bros., Inc. 
 
 Stockton, Calif. 
 f1. Reg. U.S. Pat. Off. 
 
 rvi92056 
 
 RlB 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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