annulling a law passed under the police power of the State.

The platform in the second place opposed vigorously the indiscriminate
dissolution of trusts and combinations, on the ground that combination
in the business field was not only inevitable but necessary and
desirable for the promotion of national and international efficiency. It
condemned the evils of inflated capitalization and unfair competition;
and it proposed, in order to eliminate those is evils while
preserving the unquestioned advantages that flow from combination, the
establishment of a strong Federal commission empowered and directed
to maintain permanent active supervision over industrial corporations
engaged in interstate commerce, doing for them what the Federal
Government now does for the national banks and, through the Interstate
Commerce Commission, for the transportation lines.

Finally in the field of social justice the platform pledged the party to
the abolition of child labor, to minimum wage laws, the eight-hour day,
publicity in regard to working conditions, compensation for industrial
accidents, continuation schools for industrial education, and to
legislation to prevent industrial accidents, occupational diseases,
overwork, involuntary unemployment, and other injurious effects incident
to modern industry.

To stand upon this platform and to carry out the terms of this "contract
with the people," the Convention nominated without debate or dissent
Theodore Roosevelt for President and Hiram W. Johnson of California for
Vice-President. Governor Johnson was an appropriate running mate for
Roosevelt. In his own State he had led one of the most virile and fast
moving of the local Progressive movements. He burned with a white-hot
enthusiasm for the democratic ideal and the rights of man as embodied
in equality of opportunity, freedom of individual development, and
protection from the "dark forces" of special privilege, political
autocracy and concentrated wealth. He was a brilliant and fiery
campaigner where his convictions were enlisted.

So passed the second act in the drama of the Progressive party.

CHAPTER XIV. THE GLORIOUS FAILURE

The third act in the drama of the Progressive party was filled with the
campaign for the Presidency. It was a three-cornered fight. Taft stood
for Republican conservatism and clung to the old things. Roosevelt
fought for the progressive rewriting of Republican principles with added
emphasis on popular