Why They Left

SprlngHeld lii-publk-an. Hut the easy assumption tliat the bott men are in tlio Hepublican party will not do, because it is not true. The tima whcu moral conviction gave the Hepublican party its mighly hold on the people of the United States has goue by, and that organization which did such niagniticent work fnr humanity has Io3t its hold on the conscience voter just In proportion as it has come under a leadership inspired by selfish purposes and out of touch with the high aims of the past. W'hy has Massachusetts witnessed such a shifting of voters as constitutes the most impressive evideuce that it would be possible to gather to prove that the leadership of the party nolongcr representa U oíd moral forcé? Simply because the virtuc and convictions of the rank and fil do not avail at present to direct the policies and name the candidates of the party. Let us Ilústrate tbis point a little for the enligbtenment of a Massachusetts man away from home. We will look for some ot the men who most conspiciouslv helped to support and to make the old leadership when "Massachusetts led America, and led her with an audacity and an aggressiveness, with a skill and eloquence, with a power and force that has neyer been surpassed ia all the tide of time in the leadership of a great people." We will inquire for eminent citizeus who are not ambitious for office, and to whom party is more than a means for securing it- thoughtful voters, who decline to give up to a pohtical organization what was meant for mankind. The roll of Cleveland Republicana as display - ed four ycars ago is indeed a notable one. James liussell Lowell, President Eliot, John M. Korbes, the late Rev. Dr. James Freeman Clarke, HenryL. Pierce, Charles R. Codman, Thomas Wentworth HigginsoD, Gen. Francis A. Walker. William Everett, Theodore Lyman, Robert Treat Paine, Jr., Edward Atkinson, the Rey. Dr. Rufus Ellig, Dr. Samuel Eliot, Oen. Francis A. Osborn, Gamahel Bradford - these are some of the men who helped elect the present President of the United States. Such men loved the Republican party with a deep and disinterestcd devotion - and why did they leaye it? Not for hope of gain, not because of personal disappointment, but because the party as led four years ago had ceased to represent thetn, and so it is to-day. "By their fruits ye shall know thena." Partios in a republic being a means to an end, the good citizen is bound by every high obligation to weigh parties and candidates every time he goes to the polls, and to cast bis vote for the man who represents the largest promise of uouest and economical govcrnment in each giyen case. No citizen eau do less than this aud be truc to his own manhood. He will seek "the best" man for local, State aud National offices, and will endorse the party wbich at the time and place appeals to bis candid judgment as the most available instrument for promoting; the welfare of the people. No man is safe in tying for good and all to any political party, because when bad leadership gets on top be is a helpless victiin of it. If he is ready to repudíate it when occasion demauda he will be a true free man and respectcd as such.