At Least $500,000 Needed In Democratic Campaign.

New York Times 100 years ago today, July 17, 1912:
Party Managers to Look to the People for Most of It — Strong Wilson Drift in Pennsylvania
Special to The New York Times.
    CHICAGO, July 15.— In the opinion of a wise old bird who has been engaged for thirty years or so in handling political machinery in the South, it will take not less than $500,000 to run the present Democratic campaign for the Presidency. Not a great deal of money will be needed in the South—enough possibly to pay the actual expenses of a few speakers who really have not the means of paying their own way; but in the North and West the condition has been wholly different. In the South politics is a creed; in the North and West politics is a business.
    The ways and means must be found, and as the Democratic candidate has announced his position touching the sources of supply, that he does not expect and will not consent to contributions from the "big interests," a plan must be found of assembling the wherewithal necessary to the successful conduct of the campaign.
    In Dr. Wilson's church on missionary occasions one of the favorite hymns is "Fly Abroad, Thou Mighty Gospel"; but it is almost invariably explained that the aviation will not be successful without wings. "The bearings of this observation," as Capt. Bunsby would say, "'lays in the application on it," that is to say, in the response the people will make to the call of the Treasurer when he passes around the hat, and the larger and better preened the feathers, the safer and faster the flight.
    It is a rather vulgar view to take of the situation, this thing of estimating out in public the matter of expenses, but politics, however sublimated, is, after all, a very practical affair and must be dealt with in a very practical way, so that the sooner the party till is filled the sooner the country will be able to settle down to the consideration of the vital questions involved in the present great struggle.

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    The "situation" is really very much what it was after the conventions of the great parties had finished their work. All the argument and most of the people appear to be on the side of the Democracy this year; what will happen after the meeting of the Bull Moose Party in Chicago next month remains to be seen. If that convention shall determine to press the candidacy of Mr. Roosevelt it will play the mischief with Mr. Taft; if it shall "under the circumstances" reach the conclusion that the time is not auspicious, looking at the subject from a broad point of view, for destroying the Republican Party, and that it would be better for the Republican Progressives, who really exist only in imagination, to stand by the nominees of the Republican Convention in Chicago last month, the work will be made a little harder for the Democrats. In any event, it would seem from present indications, the Democratic ticket will be elected.
    Tom Taggart said this morning that the situation in Indiana had not been so promising for Democratic success in the last thirty years. There are no family jars this year, no local differences to settle. The Indiana Democrats are united, the Indiana Republicans are split all to pieces. The regular Republican organisation is for Taft, the Roosevelt people, or "Progressives," will put another Electoral ticket in the field, which they can do under the law, by petition, and against this divided opposition the Democrats will present a solid front. Normally, the State is very close between the two parties, and the defection of a few thousand Republican voters even in ordinary years would throw the State into the hands of the Democrats. The split in the Republican ranks this year is so wide and irremediable that Indiana may be counted upon as safe for the Democracy by not less than 25,000. It would not be surprising if the majority should reach 30,000. Not only will the Democratic National ticket win in Indiana, but the State, local, and Congressional offices will all go to the Democrats, the tail going with the head and hide.

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    The situation is almost equally encouraging in Pennsylvania, though the conditions there are very different from the conditions in Indiana. In the latter State there has never been that close affiliation between the machines of the two parties that there has been in the former; indeed, in Indiana there has been a fair, square stand-up between the bosses of the respective parties, there not being enough regular patronage to go around, while in Pennsylvania there has been "a working agreement," or "a gentlemen's understanding," which assured a certain measure of relief to the office-holding contingent, or the office-distributing contingent, of the make-believe antagonists, whatever the election returns.
    Indiana has voted the Democratic National ticket three times since 1876, including that year, and was striking a very healthy Democratic gait until William J. Bryan appeared to darken all its political counsels. Four years ago, under the leadership of Marshall, it showed signs of recovery. Pennsylvania has never voted the Democratic National ticket since the Republican Party was invented for sectional (some persons claim moral) purposes, and but for the reckless adventure of Roosevelt this year, would now be safely Republican. It is not.
    Mitchell Palmer of the Bethlehem district, whose chief opponent and best asset is Charles M. Schwab, promised the Democrats at Baltimore that Pennsylvania would vote the Democratic ticket this year if Woodrow Wilson should be nominated, and he has come to the meeting of the National Democratic Committee, now sitting here, to give bond for the faithful performance of his pledge. He admits that Pennsylvania is a close State, a normally Republican State, but he claims that it is a State that can be saved and is worth saving. He is the new National Democratic Committeeman from Pennsylvania and is full of faith and "ginger."
    Under the old arrangement there was a close alliance in patronage matters between Penrose, the Republican boss, and Guffey, the Democratic boss. Their methods were very much the same; their purposes, generally speaking, in entire harmony. They had to be consulted about all party affairs; they selected the men who were to fill the offices; they decreed whether it should be Jones or Smith, and they (particularly Penrose) were careful to select the men for official station who would be amenable to their direction or discipline, with the result that the office holders were so many pawns on the chess board, to be moved hither and thither by the masters of the show.
    Suddenly, however, and in a way that even they cannot fully explain, the younger men of Pennsylvania came together resolved that the time had come when they must assert themselves if their commonwealth were ever to be pulled out of the mire of corrupt personal politics. They have succeeded so well in their flrst considerable engagement with the predatory politicians that they are now convinced of their ability to carry the State with them for Woodrow Wilson.

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    Mr. Palmer confesses to a very high regard for Mr. Taft, but thinks that his fortunes were intrusted to very unworthy hands when Penrose was made his representative in the Republican Party fight in Pennsylvania. The people of Pennsylvania were really fighting Penrose and not Taft. They made the mistake of picking Flinn as their representative. Flinn is infinitely worse than Penrose, bad as Penrose undoubtedly is, and this is the weakness of the fight the Republicans have made and the real point of danger in the situation, looking at the question from the Democratlc point of view.
    Whether the Republicans who voted at the primaries against Taft because of their distrust of Penrose will return to the regular fold and vote for Taft Electors in November or stay with the Bill Flinn party and vote for the Electors nominated at the Republican primaries who are for Roosevelt, is one of the confused factors in the present situation. Whatever they shall do, however, the outlook in Pennsylvania for Democratic success was never so promising. It does not matter what the result may be, it is certain that Pennsylvania has turned over a new leaf in its politics, and particularly in its Democratic politics, the men who have now taken the helm being influenced by some higher and better consideration than the mere loaves and fishes.
    One of the encouraging factors in this struggle is Berry, who is running for State Treasurer, the same Berry who was State Treasurer when the Capitol scandal was exposed at Harrisburg, and who has to his credit a number of the respectables who are now serving their sentences in the penitentiary, and other respectables who died as the result of exposure. Berry was not in high favor with the bosses, and organized a little party of his own, "The Keystone Party," it was called, and in Spite of all the machines in the State, big and little, polled something like 480,000 votes, 50,000 more votes than Penrose's candidate for Governor, Tener, who Will hold on until 1915, and will be the last Republican Governor of Pennsylvania if all the plans of Palmer and his young men do not come to naught.
    Outside of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia the country districts of Pennsylvania are well-disposed toward the Democratic Party. Pattison was elected Governor of the State two or three times because he could control a sufficient number of votes in these two cities to overcome the majorities previously given by them against the country vote, which can be depended upon by hard work, for the Democratic candidates, if they are worthy of support and are not tainted by slavery to the bosses.

***

    It is worth noting as indicating the foreordained redemption of Philadelphia that last year the Republican riders were unhorsed and Blankenburg was elected Mayor, notwithstanding all the grafters and manipulators of the most improved election machinery were against him. This means that the Police and Fire Departments, always very influential in Quaker City politics, are no longer responsive to Republican direction, and this means that in Philadelphia this year the people will have the chance to vote as they pray. Philadelphia being one of the great Presbyterian centres of the country, it stands to reason that Philadelphia will vote for the predestinated ticket, Wilson and Marshall.
    Palmer was much impressed by the work done in the convention at Baltimore, by the common sense of the young men managing the campaign of Woodrow Wilson, and their stubborn resistance to all appeals that were made to them by the other parties in the contest. They played politics as it had never been played before, and surprised themselves by the charm with which the thine worked. Going into the convention with a very definite object in view, they stayed there until they got it, and, now that they have what they went after, they intend to do the rest.
            J. C. H.