Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 261, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 October 1912 — OUR COUNTY TICKET. [ARTICLE]

OUR COUNTY TICKET.

Republicans, we are right on the eve of the election. With an unusual and very strange national and state situatiSn, which we should have attempted to solve in a fair manner, according to our convictions, we have not discussed the county situation very much. Our candidates are all men well known throughout the county, men whose records in every way are clean and irreproachable and whose qualities of citizenship assure us that they will be capable officials in every manner. Every Republican, tlat is, every man who was a republican last spring, had an opportunity to aid in the selection of these candidates. The convention was held following the widest publicity possible and the delegates were selected without the influence ol any person or persons but the candidates and their friends. The ticket, therefore, is your ticket, the one you helped to name, either by your participation in the primary conventions, the county convention or by youi quiet acquiescence in not attending the primaries. It is an old and honorable precept that a person wbo participates in a convention is in honor bound to support the nominee of that convention. The use of fraud in effecting the nomination would be sufficient reason to withdraw support but there was no charge of fraud in connection with the republican county convention. Two leading jwbgressives of the county, both beneficiaries of your votes in previous acted as the officers of Chat convention. The men who were named for office secured the majority of votes of the convention and there is no just excuse that any man who was a republican at that time can have, unless it was on personal grounds, to desert any part of the ticket. Contrary to the way in which it was named a few men secretly and ■without Che sanction of twenty per cent of their own party, named a ticket for county offices. Part of that ticket, moved by honorable motives, refused to permit their names to remain but others replaced those who withdrew. There could be but one hope in the naming of this new party ticket and that is the defeat of the Republican ticket and the election of democrats to the offices. We do not believe that men were republicans last spring, who wanted a good ticket named by Republicans in order that they might be successful, will refuse to support it now. They are claiming in great numbers that they are opposed to the method which a few employed and that they will remain loyal to the Republican ticket and fulfill the policy of the “square deal” which they know to be right. Whatever Is accomplished in future years toward the defeat of democracy must be accomplished by the union of the Republican and Progressive forces. But this union would be seriously impaired if the regnlai county ticket is defeated by the neglect of the Progressives of the county to support it. That is of common interest to ns all. It is a principle that should appeal to a higher sense than any grudge that a few may hare and we nre addressing this appeal to voters who have the intelligence to rise above the contemptible standpoint oi playing politics. This is as much the ticket of the present day Progressives as it is o the Republicans, because we were all united when it was nominated and we must all be united in the future if we are ever to W victorious. The point is clear; it is up to you, Mr. Voter, to act upon it. 0