In the primary campaign, in the spring of 1912, the Progressive Republicans and Mr. Roosevelt proved their case up to the hilt.  In every instance but one, where it was possible to get a direct vote of the people, Roosevelt beat President Taft, and overwhelmingly.  Thus, in California he beat him nearly two to one; in Illinois, more than two to one, in Nebraska more than three to one, in North Dakota more than twenty to one, in South Dakota more than three to one.  In New Jersey, Maryland, Oregon and Ohio, Roosevelt won decisively; in Pennsylvania by a tremendous majority.  Massachusetts, the only remaining State which held a direct primary, where both men were in the field, split nearly even, giving Mr. Taft a small lead.

In the face of this clear indication of what the voters wished, for the Republican leaders to go ahead and nominate Mr. Taft was sheer suicide from a political point of view.  It was also something much worse:  the few denying the will of the many.  This, of course, is tyranny,—­what our ancestors revolted against when they founded the nation.  But go ahead they did.  It is probable that even as early as this they had no idea of winning the election; they merely intended to keep the party machinery in their own hands.  Gravely talking about law and the Constitution they proceeded to defy the first principles of popular government.

By use of the Southern delegates, from States where the Republican Party exists mostly in theory, by contesting almost every delegation, and always ruling against Roosevelt, by every manipulation which the “Old Guard” of the party could employ, Mr. Taft was nominated.  In at least one important and crucial case, delegates were seized for Mr. Taft by shameless theft.  The phrase is that used by Mr. Thayer,—­a historian, accustomed to weigh his words, and a non-partisan in this contest, since he favored neither Mr. Taft nor Roosevelt.

In August the Progressive Party was founded at a convention held in Chicago.  Roosevelt and Johnson were the nominees for President and Vice-President.  The men gathered at this convention were out of the Republican Party; they had not left it, but the party had left them.  Not willingly did they take this action; men whose grandfathers voted for Fremont in 1856 and for Lincoln in 1860, and again for Lincoln in 1864, when the fate of the Republic really depended on the success of the Republican Party.  The sons of men who had fought for the Union did not lightly attack even the name of the old party.  But there was nothing left but its name; its worst elements led it; many of the better men who stayed in it kept silent.  Probably even they realized the nauseous hypocrisy of the situation when Mr. William Barnes of New York came forward and implored that the country be saved, that our liberty be saved, that the Constitution be saved!

For the destroyer, from whom the country was to be saved, was one of the greatest and most honorable men of his time,—­while it was later established in court that it was no libel to say that Mr. Barnes was a Boss and had used crooked methods.