Bull Moose All There Is To The Third Party.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 29, 1912:
That Is Why Progressive Republicans Are Flocking to Wilson Standard.
    There Is only one really Progressive candidate for President in the field, and his name is Woodrow Wilson. Nobody seriously regards Mr. Roosevelt as anything but — Mr. Roosevelt; a mere symptom of the times. Nobody thinks that he would make a safe or sane President; he had a fair trial for seven long and weary years. Nobody thinks he can be elected President; even Mr. Munsey thinks that his race is run. That is to say, nobody excepting Pinchot and Garfield and a few others of like kidney, whose political judgment has been warped by personal disappointments, and who, after the manner of the ancients in dealing with the scapegoat, would unload their troubles upon the chief Bull Moose wandering in the political wilderness.
    Nobody thinks in his heart that the Colonel is dependable in politics. He bucks. He won't stand, hitched or unhitched. He is for or against anything and everybody which is not for him. He is the new Third Party, or thinks he is; but he isn't. There is, in fact, no Third Party; there will be no Third Party. Very few hotel reservations have been made for it in Chicago, although the convention hall will be filled, doubtless, with a wild concourse of people of one sort and another. Enough tickets have been sold, or will be sold, to pay for the rent of the hall. Men who "have money to burn" like the excitement but the balloon will burst. The people are beginning to see what a miserable farce the play really is. There is nothing in the movement to which the people can hang; nothing but the Colonel, and he knows it, and they know it. Why not call it off? Why not say we have boiled down the juice and it won't jell," and let it go at that?

* * *

    "Out in the cow country" there are at times frightful stampedes among the steers, but there has been no stampede this year, and there will be none. The cattle have behaved uncommonly well. They know where the grass is green and the water good, and they cannot be frightened by the voices of the night and the political Indians who have been trying to make them run. The people are progressive — rather too progressive for their own good, it may be — but they are progressing toward the true progressive camp this time, and are looking to Wilson and not to Roosevelt, because, as they see it, there is something really tangible, something understandable, in what Wilson has said and in what Wilson's party has done, whereas they have had nothing from Roosevelt but mixed and uncertain and impracticable declarations, "subject to change without notice."

* * *

    This, at any rate, is the steadily growing impression throughout the Middle West and in Pennsylvania; Flinn cares nothing especially for Roosevelt. Flinn is for Flinn, and against Penrose. In Pennsylvania, as it is in Ohio, and Indiana, and Michigan, and Illinois, and Missouri, it is a fight of the newer would-be bosses against the older and more seasoned bosses, of new machines against old machines. If Flinn thought for a moment that he could make more for himself and his followers by dropping Roosevelt than by holding on to him, he would not hesitate a moment. It is so in the other States named and with the new men, who, having, been turned out to grass by the old bosses, would now be bosses in their own right and for their own purposes.

* * *

    Men who have been disappointed, who have not gotten what they wanted, who have been "sat down on," who have worked without such reward as they expected, are behind the Bull Moose movement. There is no principle involved in their following after the impossible and irresponsible leader of the present movement. How could there be in view of the chief men engaged in this wild adventure? Those who are seriously minded in political matters and who do not feel that anything is to be gained by sticking to the Bull Moose — and their name is Legion — will in the end make their way into the Democratic camp because, as they frankly acknowledge, the only Progressive Party this year is the Democratic Party, and Woodrow Wilson is its prophet.

* * *

This is what a high Republican leader in Indiana meant when he said a week or ten days ago: "There are ten thousand men sitting on the fence in Indiana waiting for developments." This is what the Republican leader in Pennsylvania meant when he said that "three-fourths of the Flinn people in this State do not care a fig for Roosevelt." This is what the Republican leader in St Louis meant when he said: "Roosevelt is really no longer an issue in Missouri; the people are after a Progressive candidate who means something and can do something." This is what Gov. Osborn of Michigan meant when he said that although he had started the movement among the Governors for Roosevelt and would vote for Roosevelt electors if they should be named in Michigan, he had suggested that Roosevelt should not make the race for President and that Wilson was a good enough Progressive for him and for the true Progressives of the Badger State. This is what every man of sound and disposing mind means when he says that there is nothing in the Bull Moose cause but Roosevelt and that the hope of Progressive legislation and Progressive administration is in the success of the regular Democratic ticket.

* * *

Great political movements are not to be advanced or seriously considered that have only in view the gratification of the personal ambitions of impracticable and discredited leaders. There must be a good deal more in such matters than the personal equation. Really the issues in this campaign are greater than the candidates, and the candidate who most nearly stands for Progressive policies, or for the old policies fitted into new and becoming dress in keeping with the temper and genius of the times, explains why it is that so many thousand voters of the Republican order are drifting to Wilson.
    J. C. H.