Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 223, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 September 1912 — WHERE WAS BE, FOUR YEARS AGO? [ARTICLE]

WHERE WAS BE, FOUR YEARS AGO?

Meaning Nob* Other Than Sob. A J. Beveridge, Progressive Can- . Candidate for Governor. * Four years ago President Taft carried Indiana. Four years ago Thomas R. Marshall was jblected governor. Four years ago county option was the issue in Indiana. Four years ago Albert J. Beveridge was in Oklahoma. Having discovered where Albert J. Beveridge was four, yeara ago, let US ascertain why he was there. Oklahoma was a new state. It was certain to be hopelessly democratic. Albert J. Beveridge put in his time during the campaign arguing and orating in a state that had no chance to cast its electoral vote for the republicans. He withdrew his influence from his own state, from the state that had twice elected him a United States Senator and which was regarded’ with ' grave concern by those best versed in political conditions. There was a reason for it. The republican party had the leadership of J. Frank Hanly and adopted county local option. Albert J. Beveridge feared the growing influence of J. Frank Hanly. He knew that republican success in Indiana and the reaffirmed faith in Hanly’s doctrine meant- opposition for the United States Senate in 1910. He went to Oklahoma. ■When did he retdrn? Shortly before the election. He was in Rensselaer the latter part of October and delivered a speech in a tent erected for the purpose in Milroy Park. He talked national issues. He did not raise his voice in favor of the one issue that was uppermost in the state, namely, county option, which meant less and better regulated saloons. It was well known that he was against the cause of temperance and prohibition. He helped by his silence to defeat the party, his party, the party that had twice honored him. He gloated at the defeat. A few months later, talking to the republican editors at tbe Claypol hotel in Indianapolis, he said that it was a “wholesome defeat.” This self proclaimed puritan regarded the defeat of the cause of temperance as “wholesome.” Less than two years later he carried his “wholesome” ideas into the republican state convention and there as the author of the republican platform left county local option out of it. He was the sole issue before the people. He wished nothing to detract from a presentation of his personality. The cause of temperance could wait. Now he adroitly says ih his speeches that the initiative and referendum wil establish prohibition If the people want it, yet in two campaigns he refused aid to grant the people of the counties of the state a referendum vote on the saloon question. There may have been a time when the people of Indiana could have been fooled by such duplicity but it is an Insult to their intelligence to believe that they edn be misled in the present day. Thinking as much of Oklahoma as