Democrats Divided By Battleship Issue.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 28, 1912:
Caucus Action Not in Accord with Platform or Views of Presidential Candidate.
SULZER'S STAND APPROVED
Charles A. Towne, Representative Smith, and Other Democrats Join Him in Demand for More Ships.
Special to The New York Times.
    WASHINGTON, July 27- House Democrats are beginning to feel the sting of criticism from back home on the incongruity of the declaration of the Democratic National platform on battleships and the caucus action declaring against the authorization of two battleships. Many are afraid that the difference between the two declarations will have a disastrous effect on the prospects of the Democratic National ticket, and Eastern and Middle Western Democratic members have heard within the last few days some very plain talk from home about the attitude of the majority in the lower house.
    The agitation of the question whether the United States has the right to the use of the Panama Canal as a military defense, and also whether American merchant vessels shall have free tolls in order to bring down transcontinental freight rates for the benefit of Eastern and Middle Western sections, has awakened the people to the grave necessity for a strong navy. The consciousness among the great mass of American voters that the ultimate force of an argument in diplomacy where great commercial interests clash behind the pour-parlers of the foreign offices is the number and fighting strength of a navy is having its effect on the situation.
    Many Congressmen are getting letters from their constituents saying that the House majority should wake up and begin to get in line with the candidate of tile Democratic Party for President. From some sections reports come that the third party people are making a good deal of talk about the battleship question, and if it keeps up it is likely to be a full-fledged issue. Some urge that the dogmatic decision of the House Democratic caucus, in spite of the declaration of the Baltimore platform, augurs badly for the kind of administration the Democratic Party is going to give the country.
    To save by refusing to build battleships indicates that the same policy may be followed along the whole line of public expenditures, which would tend to unsettle business conditions all over the country and bring on within the next two years a condition of business distrust that would lead to the conditions which the country had under Grover Cleveland. This idea is already, certain Eastern Congressmen say, beginning to be heard in the current political discussion of the day, and may have a disastrous influence on the campaign.
    Northern Democrats have been comparing notes in the last few days, and they confess that they see very little prospect for the success of any effort to reconcile the position of the party in Congress and the position of the party at large in its platform. There was great disappointment among many Democrats that when the platform declared for a strong navy the majority in the House did not abandon its previous caucus action and come out squarely in line with the later utterance, which has the force of popular authority.
    Charles A. Towne of New York City, once Democratic Senator from Minnesota, then member of Congress from New York, has written a letter to Representative William Sulzer of New York, telling him the Democrats of the House are Inviting party disaster and "National humiliation" by their attitude against the authorization of battleships at this session. This letter was written to Mr. Sulzer because the latter is leading a fight against the Democratic caucus decision against battleships, and says he will not be bound by the caucus action, and that he intends to vote with the Republican side for two battleships at the first opportunity. Mr. Towne says in his letter:
    Let me thank you for your activity in attempting to save the Democratic Party in Congress not only from the awful responsibility of inviting party disaster, which is bad enough, but also National humiliation, which is infinitely worse, by failing to pass the appropriation for two battleships.
    He is blind who cannot, and worse than blind who will not, see that any hope of the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine and of the meeting of our responsibilities in the Pacific becomes, in the absence of an adequate navy, as vain as the dream of a dreamer who dreams that he dreams.
    From Representative Charles B. Smith of Buffalo came this telegram:
    Please put my name on list in favor of battleships. Will be there to vote for it.