The control of the Republican National Convention in June, 1912, in the interest of Mr. Taft was achieved by methods full of as corrupt menace to popular government as ballot-box stuffing or any species of fraud or violence at the polls. Yet it was condoned by multitudes of respectable men of wealth and respectable men of cultivation because in their hearts they regarded genuine control by what they called “the mob”--that is, the people--as an evil so great that compared with it corruption and fraud became meritorious. The Republican party of to-day has given absolute control of its destinies into the hands of a National Committee composed of fifty-three irresponsible and on the whole obscure politicians. It has specifically provided that these men, who have no responsibility whatever to the public, can override the lawfully expressed will of the majority in any state primary. It has perpetuated a system of representation at national conventions which gives a third of the delegates to communities where there is no real Republican vote, where no delegation for or against any man really represents anything, and where, in consequence, the National Committee can plausibly seat any delegates it chooses without exciting popular indignation. In sum, these fifty-three politicians have the absolute and unchallenged control of the National Convention. They do not have to allow the rank and file of the party any representation in that convention whatever, and, as has been shown in actual practice, they surrender to them any control whatever, on the occasion when they deem it imperatively necessary, merely as a matter of expediency and favor, and not as a matter of right or principle.