La Follette and 28

When the Republican National Convention opened, Robert M. La Follette wrote a letter to Governor John J. Blaine of Wisconsin, Chairman of the Wisconsin delegation. Said the Senator:

"It is my express wish that in the Republican National Convention assembling June 10 my name be not placed in nomination. I request further that the Progressive delegates elected by the people of Wisconsin concentrate all their energies upon obtaining the adoption of the platform of Progressive principles which received an overwhelming endorsement in the April primary. . . . While the platforms submitted by Wisconsin have been scornfully rejected by Republican National Conventions since 1908, practically every important proposal submitted by the Wisconsin delegates up to 1916 has since been enacted into law. There are, indeed, only five of 31 planks submitted by Wisconsin 'during this period which are not now embodied in the law of the land."

Although Mr. La Follette did not appear in Cleveland himself, his wishes were carried out by Governor Blaine and by his own son, Bob, Jr. The younger La Follette, aggressive, meticulous in dress, much resembles his father. In keenness of intellect, perhaps, the son does not measure up to his father. But he is an effective worker for his father's cause, and under his direction the 28 La Follettemen did their appointed task.

To be sure they did not succeed in writing the La Follette planks into the Republican platform. They were not expected to do that They were there to make a gesture--a pro forma offering of their planks. For the Republican Party to have accepted the offering would have been a sure proof of its insanity--because the La Follette platform denounced all the major works of the Republican Party--the tariff, the railroad law, the Mellon tax plan, the "degraded foreign policy."

There is yet no absolute proof, but it is an utterly reasonable inference from the course of events thus far that Mr. La Follette will run as a third candidate for President. It is to be expected that the Conference for Progressive Political Action--a Labor group in which the railroad brotherhoods are prominent--will find in its convention in Cleveland on July 4 that the old parties have nothing to offer that it wants. It may invite Mr. La Follette to head a third ticket and Mr. La Follette may accept.