RIVAL CANDIDATES.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1475, 25 June 1912, Page 7

RIVAL CANDIDATES.

PEN PICTURES OF' THE PARTY LEADERS. .The personalities of the rival candidates for the Presidency are cleverly sketched by a writer in the Juno number of the "World's Work." The writer's sympathies are obviously with Mr. Woodrow Wilson, one of the Democratic aspirants, but, apart from this touch of mas, he hits off tho characteristics of the leading candidates very fairly:— The Republicans. Mr. Tnft—by temperament not suited for sturdy executive duties, being too trustful of those near him and tco inaccessible to those who speak plainly to him; "a good man surrounded by gentlemen who know exactly what they want," "meaning well feebly"; patriotic but indecisive till driven to anger; compromising by nature—hoping that the Pinchot and -Wiley troubles, for examples, will blow oyer; intellectually lazy till spurred to action—composing a Winona speech, for example, between railway stations; an amiable and attractive man at close range, but an inept leader, not knowing the people; a man of policies rather than of fundamental convictions, with a naif confidence in mere party leaders and a sort of child-like interpretation of party platforms; as fierce in anger as fie is amiable in repose, his. smile giving place to violent spoeeh which sounds as if it were assumed; a man who has not reasoned out a fundamental economic creed; a formal mihded man, thinking clearly by statutes rather than by principles; a President of very considerable achievement, for which he has not received due credit because of his lack of commanding tones; like a quiet day after a cyclone, which seems dull and heavy because of the wind and fury of the day before; more unfortunate than blameworthy, approved by sufferance rather than with applause; a President that has many personal friends but few active partisans except under compulsion; tho victim of his own fundamental mistake in not accepting a seat on tho Supreme Bench. . Mr. Roosevelt—the foremost political personality of his time, whose vigorous and dictatorial use of the Presidency gave the office a new meaning and gave the nation a new impulse; wlioso prodigious success bred in him a prodigious impatience, and has misled him into sacrificing the dignity of his position; willing to risk defeat for great principles of "social justice" that are somewhat too vague for clear political formulation, but so fierce in their hold on him that they drive him into compromising pugnacities and contradictions and associations; the idol of the impatiently active; he is an impulse rather than a well ordered force; a man of the most varied knowledge and accomplishments, but strangely lacking in economic grasp; capable of mistaking his wishes for principles; file probable destroyer of his party in' his zeal to lift it up; incapable of Tet.iromefit and lacking tho patience to harvest and to use the great influence of his prodigious activities; if ho should become President again, why not still again? That is the rock that he is in danger of. for he is going recklessly over uncharlcd waters. The liity of it is that ho is running at all. It was a great enough violence to the real rule of the people that he dictated his own successor in the Presidency. It would bo somewhat too dictatorial if he should become successor to that successor. On Demoocraiic Side.

• Mr. Bryan—whose career is without parallel in our history (certainly since Henry Clay cea-ed to be a Presidential candidate); .a man who has lived to see his sueros.-fnl competitors take many of his political doctrines and plans and relabel them and get credit for them; yet observing this series of events and lu's series of defeats with philosophy and .even with humour; an enduring "campaigner, a friendly and kindly nature with a philosophy of life that gives him a sincere sympathy with the masses of men; a man who missed being tho foremost Democrat of his time by his serious intellectual limitations, but a man whoso irst.inctivo perception of tho democratic philosophy has made him a great leafier of the masses; sobered by time and become moTc tolerant and brooder, he is tho loudest voice yet in expressing tilie crude cry for justice to the unprivileged and forgotten: a shrewd politician and thrifty, with his belief yet unshaken that ho was born to bo President—why not at the coming election? a partv dictator with an air of humility: if his mind were as srood an instrument for clear thinking as his voice is for clear =penkin7, he would long ago have been invincible.;' and he may be iminciblo yet, for ho can yet convince hiin ;elf of auv popular plausibilitr, and the Republicans way e.cccpt a candidate of desperation. Governor H.'rmon—a man of commonplace mind whose thinking was done a generation ago; old-fashioned because inert and temperamentally "slaud-nat": a lawyer of good practice clrVidv far corporation? : a man of a kindly nature. n sort of old-fashioned gentleman furnished to order for (he pr'sonl occns-'on. who would not have been thought of for President if he had lived in e. c mnll State : acceptable to fflio~e whc-9 god is named Statiw Quo. and who wish a President that will not disturb IhiiiTs; a sort of intellectual and political brother to Mr. Alton B. Parker, who once ran for tho Presidency. Mr. Champ Clark—a good-natured country campaigner and teller of bucolic,

yams, well liked by his fellows of tho same calibre in Congress, who call him by his first name; without dignity of mind or of Manner; a man in whom the routine of parly and of political procedure is the aim of thiligs and party loyalty is law; without any vision of statesmanship; a common politician of tho personally respectable sort, lacking in pruileiico because larking ju knowledge,• with a genius for blundering speech; without hardiness of mind or of convictions; in the race as a stalking horse or dummy, as overybndy knows but himself, yet a possible nominno by a slip in tho gamo of tho managers of the convention; perhaps tho only Democrat v;hose nomination would make Hepublican success certain whoever bo the Republican nominee. Governor Wocdrow "Wilson—a scholar in government, with an historical and political perspective; a man of profound convictions, holding that there should be no class that shall receive privileges from tho Government; regarding boss rule and the private conduct of public business as tho worst crimes against polilical society; trustful of the people, a Democrat in fact; with brief but eminently successful executive experience (the New Jersey of to-day being a wholly different political community ;rom the New Jersey of two years ago); courageous because he lias fundamental convictions and a sturdy seriousness of character; a man of high ideals to whom politics lias a profound moral significance; a man with a definite, well-reasoned programme, to \vhom our institutions and our national life are living organisms; his political creed, therefore, a working creed to fitpresent problems and not a set of fixed formulas; courageous for conscience's sake and not from sheer love of fight; modest to the verge of timidity as regards his personal relations and fortunes and, therefore, handicapped in a rough race by a gentle hesitancy, having the modesty of a well-bred mind and tho humour of a philosopher; the most convincing public speaker in political life, master of exact language without pedantry; not favoured by these who for any reason wish tho Government to be a dispenser of favours or wish it to bo conducted by professional cliques or bosses; a man of stern stuff, resolute, gently bred, and, because of his combination of force, dignity and grace, in a class by himself among the candidates for the Presidency; so clearly right-minded and right-temper-ed that, if there were a clear-cut Presidential primary in all the States, he would probably' win the nomination with no second in the race. As Mr. Roosevelt gives the Republican party a chance to show its desDeration, so Governor Wilson gives the Democratic party a chance to show its wisdom.