Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 183, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1911 — Paralysed Political Prospects, If Not His Right Arm. [ARTICLE]

Paralysed Political Prospects, If Not His Right Arm.

When Thomas Marshall made his campaign speech in Anderson, he stated, with apparent candor, that he was not the candidate of brewers npr of any oilier class or faction. His statement was accepted at its face value, and it made him many votes among the “dry” democrats. “Wet” democrats and “wet” republicans voted for him on the word of the saloonkeepers that he was all right. Today Ifee s and their friends are complacent over their situation, while the “drys” who took him at his word can not express their opinion of him without using language already copyrighted by T. R. When the Governor had placed his signature to the Proctor bill and had made it a law, he was so. elated that "fae- wxhibited hie right arm to the men surrounding him to show that it had not been paralyzed by the act, as some vindictive “dry” had wished. The sober, honest men of the state are convinced that when the Governor signed that bill the paralysis had already manifested itself. Since ..the paralysis was not of the muscles, as the Governor demonstrated, it must have been’a paralysis of Borne mental or moral faculty. A man of intelligence could not have signed it else. When the saloons had been thrust back Into the “dry”, counties by the Governor’s unparalyzed right arm, the most depressed “dry” and the most exultant “wee” might have been justified in thinking that the lowest depth had not been sounded. They did not know the Governor. There had been agitation for a new State constitution. If the.people were allowed to select delegates to draft their own basic law, the liquor men would have the Ight of their lives to prevent the licensed saloon from being outlawed. Hehce the Governor once more bared ’ his unparalyzed right arm and made a new constitution in the same manned that the boy made his famous wooden fiddle—“all own of his own head and had wood enough left -to make another one.” But, to avoid odious comparisons, the Governor's unparalyzed right arm has not only driven the saloon into “dry" counties, but with his little constitutional hammer he now proposes to clinch them on the under side for a generation or two to come. In doing-this he is binding to him with hooks of steel every vicious element in the State, using as a chain their thankfulness for past favors and thek-antieipatien of those yet to come. While this is going on the Governor is using his utmost adroitness to lull decent voters to repose by polysyllabic diffusions on patriotism, truth and honor.

Mr. Marshall Is wasting his time. W T hen the people choose a President this time they are going to turn down candidafea wBo liave moral or mental paralysis. There are some thinkers who profess to believe that the American people are politically decadent; but even among them it may be doubted whetfier one can be found who is so pessimistic as to believe that our citizenship has reached that state of degradation where a crossroads lawyer can climb into the presidential chair on the backs of saloonkeepers. —Edgar W. Farmer in Indianapolis Star.