Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 256, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1910 — CRUMPACKER MEETING BEST OF CAMPAIGN [ARTICLE]

CRUMPACKER MEETING BEST OF CAMPAIGN

Congressman Delivered Fine Address, and Met Frankly the Issues and the Newspaper Inquisitions. s SEVEN CASES IN 7 YEARS Prepared Brief for Corporation Which Later Employed Peterson and Continued the Case. The opera house was filled, main floor and balcony, Wednesday evening, to hear Congressman E. D. Crumpacker and Finley D. Mount discuss the issues of the campaign from a republican standpoint. It was a splendid meeting and Mr. Crumpacker held the closest attention of the large audience and delivered a speech that for sound argument and honeßt appeal to the intelligence of voters has had no equal in any speech ever delivered in Jasper county. Mr. Crumpacker told of his attitude toward the tariff legislation and of his effort in committee on the floor of the house to have the schedules on some articles made lower than they ultimately were, but that when the bill was up for final passage he voted for It because it contained in his judgment a substantial preponderence of good and because the party was pledged to a revision of the tariff and he wanted to help carry out the pledges of the party. He defended the tariff bill in the main, said it was producing revenue, and by giving protection to American industries and American labor, was cpniributing largely to the era of general prosperity the country is enjoying. He related a number of the misstatements that have been made about the tariff and charged his opponent with participation in this misrepresentation. Mr. Crumpacker pointed with some pride, and It is commendable, that during the fourteen years that he had represented the tenth congressional district, he had always been on hand for the opening of the congress and had always been there for the close and had given the most conscientious attention to his duty as a representative of the people during every session. -He pointed out the fact that he had never left congress to look after either private business or politics and that he had never returned to his district to attend a convention that nominated him for congress. He took up a few questions asked of him by the Jasper County Democrat, prompted by the Willie Robertson press bureau at Fowler, and touching upon some legal connection Mr. Crumpacker had had with three or four cades. The principal one of these was a case much discussed by democratic newspapers, in which Mr. Crumpacker represented the Standard Oil Co. against Fordick. He stated that the counsel for the Standard Oil Co. died in 1901, and that he was asked to take up the case and he did so, preparing a brief in behalf of the company. It was during the vacation between terms of congress and before the case was completed he had returned to congress and the oil company turned the matter over to Mr. Peterson, his democratic opponent, who dismissed the work he had done for the case and prepared a new defense and who had been looking after all the Standard Oil cases in that section of the state since that time. He stated that he had two years before he was a candidate for congress, in 1894, represented the Columbia Athletic Club, and that his co-counsel was John B. Peterson, his present opponent. He stated that he had never heard of Kinsey & Co., the alleged bucket shop operators, and had never represented them, but that he had acted as the attorney for some board of trade branches in Indiana and had sought to prove that the operations of the Chicago board of trade was a gambling scheme and that he secured three members of the United States supreme court to vote in line with his argument. He spoke frankly, he did not try to deceive nor resort to subterfuge. He merely asked that his in--1 quisitor publish his answers, but, of course, this will not be done. Congressman Crumpacker referred to the fact that since he had been a member of congress he has secured the passage of 3,000 private pension bills for old soldiers in his district, that be has always favored legislation for the old soldier, that he went repeatedly to the committee that had the doilar-a-day pension bills in hand and asked that the bills be brought up for passage, that he supported the Olmstead bill which provided for the age pension, but argued that the mini-

mum pension should be $24 per month insteafl of sl2. He said that the passage of a dollar-a-day pension bill would enable the soldiers now in the national homes to return to their old communities among their old friends where they would pass their -remaining days in happiness. He made no appeal for support based upon anything but his past performances as a friend of the old soldier and a pledge that he will personally do all in his power to secure the legislation they so well need and so richly deserve. Mr. Crumpacker’s speech was given the most careful attention by the large audience and was well received, many pronouncing it the ablest political address they ever heard. Finley P. Mount is the republican candidate for attorney-general. His home is in Crawfordsville. He is a nephew of former Governor Mount. He has never held an office and was never before a candidate. He talked some on the tariff but mostly about state issues. He had the figures to show that the democratic administration had not carried out its loudly proclaimed policy of retrenchment in the expenditure of the money of the state, but had increased appropriations and expenses and that outside of the expense of the public accounting law the increase in salaries and of extra employees the state spent $55,000 more a year than it did under the Hanly administration. His speech carried conviction with it and the taxpayers will begin to ask before long why this administration based on economic expenditures had not met the maturing bonds of state debt. The meeting was a good one. The people who heard it were instructed and found no bitterness but plenty of plain facts to ponder over.