EDWARD A. RUMELY
LA PORTE
IND.
My dear Mr. Pinochot:-
This is election night. As yet but a few scattered returns have reached La Porte, giving no indication of the outcome of our effort up to the present. I am writing to convey to you a thought that has been taking shape in my mind during the past three weeks.
The Progressive Party must become a permanent factor in American politics, and should now be definitely and thoroughly organized. As I see it, it has a distinct work to perform, corresponding to a period in our country's economic and social development. The Democratic Party gave expression to the political needs of a time in which men worked as individuals. It has carried the traditions of that period. Its viewpoint was to free the individual man from the fetters of medievalism, and give him scope and opportunity to express to the fullest the powers within him. It distrusts Government, because the government of previous times that men remember was that of monarchs and predatory classes. Instead of one well-organized central government, it preferred forty-two separate states.
The Republican Party came into power at a time when the steam engine, the railroad, and the larger tools of production necessitated the working together of numbers of men to a common emd. Commerce, travel, and the exchange of thought had developed on a national scale, and the Republican Party strengthened the organization of our central government. It should receive credit for creating the corporate entity by which the labor of ten, or a hundred, or a thousand men can be focused to a common purpose.
Corporations today hold title to two-thirds of our national capital, and the corporation should rank with steam and electricity as one of the great achievements of the Nineteenth Century -- but, the corporation - the child of the Republican party, became greater and stronger than its parent, and finally that party passed under the dominion of corporations it had helped to create. Its ranks were filled by men who purposes were those of the private corporations rather than the public welfare.
About the year 1900 our country entered a third period of its existence; new tasks like the building of the Panama Canal; reforestation of large areas of our country; regulation of railways, and other means if inter-communication; social legislation; the application of the discoveries of medicine in a constructive way -- all these exceeded the power of a corporation, and necessitated the broader use of our political agencies in the city, state and national government. The time had come when the doctrine that the state exists merely to defend against famine and to maintain peace and order at home, was completely obsolete. The Democrats, by their tradition and due to the fact that their leaders were individuals of strong personality, had but few men gifted with great organizing ability. The Republican Party had [page 2] insight into the problem of organization and held within its ranks men of genius for such work, like Mark Hanna -- but it was unable to rise to the new and later ideal. For ten years it had its opportunity, but it failed to seize it -- to be reborn again for another generation of useful work. Had it accomplished the larger ideal of the function of Government, we all could be working within it and through it today.
In June the crisis came, and now the Progressive Party -- that institution which supersedes the Republican Party because it recognizes what are the functions of the modern state in the largest sense of that word, that is, the functions of government in city, state and nation -- is to be the instrument with which our work must be accomplished.
We differ from the socialist in believing that privately owned capital is a useful tool and that management and leadership are necessary factors in the economic processes and of equal importance with labor that is measured by time. We cannot do otherwise than accept the humanitarian ideals and many practical demands of the Socialist movement, but we must emphasize these two vital points of difference.
A party as a permanent institution must be based upon principles which are the expression of economic tendencies and social forces. Our contract is more than a good start. It needs elaboration.
We must have a compact and well-organized central body within our own party which will detail experts to the study of the social and economic problems with which our organization will have to deal. Let us not imagine as the old parties, that in the heat, excitement and compromise of a political convention once every two or four years, we can arrive at the right conclusions and outline a proper program. Thorough investigation and careful and continued special study on the part of experts who have devoted themselves to the work will be needed. With this in mind the central organization of the Progressive Party should attach to itself a group of men specialized on various phases of the work. I conveive that a man like Dr. Luther H Gulick of New York City, now with the Russell-Sage Foundation, would be secured and delegated to investigate and report upon matters pertaining to health, legislation, recreation, and the political needs arising from the new relation of women to work and to the world. In time, the thought of such a man, as it took shape, could be perfected and projected through magazines and newspapers for public discussion, so that when finally crystallized as a concrete demand, it would have back of it an educated body of public opinion.
The names of three of four such men suggest themselves immediately for work in other lines, as for example, Industrial Insurance, and I believe that a comprehensive work such as has never been undertaken by any political party could be carried through at a cost ranging from twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars per year. S.S. McClure believes in Progressive cause, [page 3] and is convinced that Roosevelt is one of our great national assets. He knows public opinion and the avenues for expression as hardly any one else. He might organize for us a news service that would reach both newspapers and give direction to efforts of magazine writers. In this way, by the efforts of our party to deal with fundamental problems in the interval between now and the next election, we should mold the public mind to see the light and to find its proper expression at the next opportunity.
Of course, I recognize that there may be certain personal reasons why some one else would be better that Mr. McClure, or better then any one else I have suggested, but I am using these simply to illustrate the thought.
Back of constructive work to be done through the agencies of Government must be an enlightened public opinion such as was never needed before. The discussion during the excitement for three months during a campaign once in four years will not suffice. Steady persistent effort in education and enlightenment must be made so that every Progressive may have, in addition to enthusiasm, thorough information and a clear conception of the work of his party, and become thereby an effective representative of its aims and purposes in his community. Monthly meetings of the members of the Progressive Party should be arranged. We have a message of vital interest to discuss among ourselves and the public in general. There is enthusiasm enough for the issues with which we wish to grapple to bring our members together once every month during the next four years.
While in Germany I studied the operation of the Socialist Party there, which is, I believe, one of the most marvelous political organizations in existence. [Bi]-weekly or monthly regular meetings are held, at each of which some phase of the program, some present issue, or the problems of organization and discipline, are discussed. Men elected to offices are under the constant scrutiny of the members of the party at these regular meeting, and feel keenly their moral support and watchfulness over their own conduct in public matters. Discussion at these meetings develops speakers who are effective for campaign purposes. It enables the building of a coherent party organization that is invaluable during election campaigns.
Outside speakers should be brought in, and could move from place to place, speaking either to our members or in public meetings organized by our members for their own benefit and for the public as well.
Every member enrolled for this continuing work of the Progressive Party should contribute regularly to the support of our effort. Our campaign funds should never again come as contributions of a thousand or ten thousand dollars from each of twenty-five to one hundred men, but rather from a fund accumulated gradually by the payment of a small amount each month by every member of the party. It isn't human nature for us to value a thing that we get for nothing -- not even salvation. My observations has led [page 4] me to believe that in those countries where the churches are supported by state taxation their hold upon the people is much weaker than with us where the membership of each church is obliged to contribute regularly to its support.
No work can be accomplished excepting by human effort, and the routine work of any broad movement must be paid for. The Progressive Party must not start out to give to the people of this country something for nothing, but rather it must offer itself to them as an instrument with which they can work, and their money, if they would help to bring about better conditions of living for their children and for their fellows and themselves.
Every member should have a pass-book, upon which there should be registered official design, protected legally, so that we could control, through our Central Committee, the organization throughout the country. It should have printed in it our contract with the people as adopted at Chicago; so as to emphasize what I believe is now necessary, i. e. -- that we are engaged in organizing an institution rather than in supporting any one man, I should suggest that the following wonderful words from Theodore Roosevelt's Carnegie Hall speech be re-printed on one cover:--
"The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory be won. In the long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of us is spend and be spent. It is of little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years, and the shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men."
The should be blank pages so ruled that the monthly payments could be easily recorded. We could secure more money by giving the member the option of paying in either of three classes -- 5¢, 10¢, or 25¢ per month. No one would be too poor to afford the nickel a month. On the other hand, we should strike a certain note of equality that appeals to me strongly if every member were asked to pay exactly as every other, say 10¢ per month. These membership books, carrying with them the right to vote on questions arising at the local meetings of the party, would be so designed as to inter-lock with the records kept by the local chairman, by the state organization and by the national body.
We must proceed immediately to the problems of definite and permanent organization. How soon we can get together a representative [page 5] body of men interested in our cause to discuss such problems? I have spoken to friends who have been supporting the effort during this campaign, and they all feel it is desirable for us to proceed in some such way as outlined. I for one am willing to help in any way I can serve. How do you and others feel about the necessity of such an effort at an early date?
LA PORTE
IND.
November 5, 1912.
My dear Mr. Pinochot:-
This is election night. As yet but a few scattered returns have reached La Porte, giving no indication of the outcome of our effort up to the present. I am writing to convey to you a thought that has been taking shape in my mind during the past three weeks.
The Progressive Party must become a permanent factor in American politics, and should now be definitely and thoroughly organized. As I see it, it has a distinct work to perform, corresponding to a period in our country's economic and social development. The Democratic Party gave expression to the political needs of a time in which men worked as individuals. It has carried the traditions of that period. Its viewpoint was to free the individual man from the fetters of medievalism, and give him scope and opportunity to express to the fullest the powers within him. It distrusts Government, because the government of previous times that men remember was that of monarchs and predatory classes. Instead of one well-organized central government, it preferred forty-two separate states.
The Republican Party came into power at a time when the steam engine, the railroad, and the larger tools of production necessitated the working together of numbers of men to a common emd. Commerce, travel, and the exchange of thought had developed on a national scale, and the Republican Party strengthened the organization of our central government. It should receive credit for creating the corporate entity by which the labor of ten, or a hundred, or a thousand men can be focused to a common purpose.
Corporations today hold title to two-thirds of our national capital, and the corporation should rank with steam and electricity as one of the great achievements of the Nineteenth Century -- but, the corporation - the child of the Republican party, became greater and stronger than its parent, and finally that party passed under the dominion of corporations it had helped to create. Its ranks were filled by men who purposes were those of the private corporations rather than the public welfare.
About the year 1900 our country entered a third period of its existence; new tasks like the building of the Panama Canal; reforestation of large areas of our country; regulation of railways, and other means if inter-communication; social legislation; the application of the discoveries of medicine in a constructive way -- all these exceeded the power of a corporation, and necessitated the broader use of our political agencies in the city, state and national government. The time had come when the doctrine that the state exists merely to defend against famine and to maintain peace and order at home, was completely obsolete. The Democrats, by their tradition and due to the fact that their leaders were individuals of strong personality, had but few men gifted with great organizing ability. The Republican Party had [page 2] insight into the problem of organization and held within its ranks men of genius for such work, like Mark Hanna -- but it was unable to rise to the new and later ideal. For ten years it had its opportunity, but it failed to seize it -- to be reborn again for another generation of useful work. Had it accomplished the larger ideal of the function of Government, we all could be working within it and through it today.
In June the crisis came, and now the Progressive Party -- that institution which supersedes the Republican Party because it recognizes what are the functions of the modern state in the largest sense of that word, that is, the functions of government in city, state and nation -- is to be the instrument with which our work must be accomplished.
We differ from the socialist in believing that privately owned capital is a useful tool and that management and leadership are necessary factors in the economic processes and of equal importance with labor that is measured by time. We cannot do otherwise than accept the humanitarian ideals and many practical demands of the Socialist movement, but we must emphasize these two vital points of difference.
Organization of Progressive Party.
A party as a permanent institution must be based upon principles which are the expression of economic tendencies and social forces. Our contract is more than a good start. It needs elaboration.
We must have a compact and well-organized central body within our own party which will detail experts to the study of the social and economic problems with which our organization will have to deal. Let us not imagine as the old parties, that in the heat, excitement and compromise of a political convention once every two or four years, we can arrive at the right conclusions and outline a proper program. Thorough investigation and careful and continued special study on the part of experts who have devoted themselves to the work will be needed. With this in mind the central organization of the Progressive Party should attach to itself a group of men specialized on various phases of the work. I conveive that a man like Dr. Luther H Gulick of New York City, now with the Russell-Sage Foundation, would be secured and delegated to investigate and report upon matters pertaining to health, legislation, recreation, and the political needs arising from the new relation of women to work and to the world. In time, the thought of such a man, as it took shape, could be perfected and projected through magazines and newspapers for public discussion, so that when finally crystallized as a concrete demand, it would have back of it an educated body of public opinion.
The names of three of four such men suggest themselves immediately for work in other lines, as for example, Industrial Insurance, and I believe that a comprehensive work such as has never been undertaken by any political party could be carried through at a cost ranging from twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars per year. S.S. McClure believes in Progressive cause, [page 3] and is convinced that Roosevelt is one of our great national assets. He knows public opinion and the avenues for expression as hardly any one else. He might organize for us a news service that would reach both newspapers and give direction to efforts of magazine writers. In this way, by the efforts of our party to deal with fundamental problems in the interval between now and the next election, we should mold the public mind to see the light and to find its proper expression at the next opportunity.
Of course, I recognize that there may be certain personal reasons why some one else would be better that Mr. McClure, or better then any one else I have suggested, but I am using these simply to illustrate the thought.
Back of constructive work to be done through the agencies of Government must be an enlightened public opinion such as was never needed before. The discussion during the excitement for three months during a campaign once in four years will not suffice. Steady persistent effort in education and enlightenment must be made so that every Progressive may have, in addition to enthusiasm, thorough information and a clear conception of the work of his party, and become thereby an effective representative of its aims and purposes in his community. Monthly meetings of the members of the Progressive Party should be arranged. We have a message of vital interest to discuss among ourselves and the public in general. There is enthusiasm enough for the issues with which we wish to grapple to bring our members together once every month during the next four years.
While in Germany I studied the operation of the Socialist Party there, which is, I believe, one of the most marvelous political organizations in existence. [Bi]-weekly or monthly regular meetings are held, at each of which some phase of the program, some present issue, or the problems of organization and discipline, are discussed. Men elected to offices are under the constant scrutiny of the members of the party at these regular meeting, and feel keenly their moral support and watchfulness over their own conduct in public matters. Discussion at these meetings develops speakers who are effective for campaign purposes. It enables the building of a coherent party organization that is invaluable during election campaigns.
Outside speakers should be brought in, and could move from place to place, speaking either to our members or in public meetings organized by our members for their own benefit and for the public as well.
Every member enrolled for this continuing work of the Progressive Party should contribute regularly to the support of our effort. Our campaign funds should never again come as contributions of a thousand or ten thousand dollars from each of twenty-five to one hundred men, but rather from a fund accumulated gradually by the payment of a small amount each month by every member of the party. It isn't human nature for us to value a thing that we get for nothing -- not even salvation. My observations has led [page 4] me to believe that in those countries where the churches are supported by state taxation their hold upon the people is much weaker than with us where the membership of each church is obliged to contribute regularly to its support.
No work can be accomplished excepting by human effort, and the routine work of any broad movement must be paid for. The Progressive Party must not start out to give to the people of this country something for nothing, but rather it must offer itself to them as an instrument with which they can work, and their money, if they would help to bring about better conditions of living for their children and for their fellows and themselves.
Every member should have a pass-book, upon which there should be registered official design, protected legally, so that we could control, through our Central Committee, the organization throughout the country. It should have printed in it our contract with the people as adopted at Chicago; so as to emphasize what I believe is now necessary, i. e. -- that we are engaged in organizing an institution rather than in supporting any one man, I should suggest that the following wonderful words from Theodore Roosevelt's Carnegie Hall speech be re-printed on one cover:--
"The leader for the time being, whoever he may be, is but an instrument to be used until broken and then to be cast aside; and if he is worth his salt he will care no more when he is broken than a soldier cares when he is sent where his life is forfeit in order that the victory be won. In the long fight for righteousness the watchword for all of us is spend and be spent. It is of little matter whether any one man fails or succeeds; but the cause shall not fail, for it is the cause of mankind. We, here in America, hold in our hands the hope of the world, the fate of the coming years, and the shame and disgrace will be ours if in our eyes the light of high resolve is dimmed, if we trail in the dust the golden hopes of men."
The should be blank pages so ruled that the monthly payments could be easily recorded. We could secure more money by giving the member the option of paying in either of three classes -- 5¢, 10¢, or 25¢ per month. No one would be too poor to afford the nickel a month. On the other hand, we should strike a certain note of equality that appeals to me strongly if every member were asked to pay exactly as every other, say 10¢ per month. These membership books, carrying with them the right to vote on questions arising at the local meetings of the party, would be so designed as to inter-lock with the records kept by the local chairman, by the state organization and by the national body.
We must proceed immediately to the problems of definite and permanent organization. How soon we can get together a representative [page 5] body of men interested in our cause to discuss such problems? I have spoken to friends who have been supporting the effort during this campaign, and they all feel it is desirable for us to proceed in some such way as outlined. I for one am willing to help in any way I can serve. How do you and others feel about the necessity of such an effort at an early date?
Yours sincerely,
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