Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 January 1916 — M’CRAY HAS DEMOCRATS VERY BADLY WORRIED [ARTICLE]

M’CRAY HAS DEMOCRATS VERY BADLY WORRIED

This Is Shown By Face That Local Paper Discredits Him As Farmer —A Bit of History.The ways of The Jasper County Democrat are queer. - ; That is, they would .be queer if that 'paper and its editor were not so well-established for doing queer and inconsistent things. In this case the inconsistency consists of an effort to discredit Warren T. McCray as a farmer and apparently delighted with the discovery that Mr. McCray ddd not spend all of last year plowing com nor all of the fall husking it, Editor Babcock causes quotation marks to be used about the word “farmer” and thereby establishes the complete lack of consistency about,, which we are about to elucidate. ’ That the rank and file of democracy, especially the agricultural democracy, are hoping for the nomination of McCray, in order that they may vote »for him, is proven in two undoubted ways. First, by the fact that many have expressed themselves as hoping that, he will be named because of his ideas concerning the present unjust methods of assessing farm lands and because (they regard him as a farmer and stockman and businessman who will remove ithe office of governor from the influence of politicians. Second, the fact that McCray is strong with the agriculturally interested democracy is the fact that the bosses of that organ! zaion have begun to attack him and to say that he is not a farmer. There is a third reason. It is even more important that the other two. It is the fact that McCray can unite the party better than any other man and that his petition for governor has been signed by progressives all over the state and that the democrats know that .the onlychance they have of winning the next election is by preventing the return of the progressives to the republican party.

So Editor Baficock, fresh from the. Jackson ‘banquet at Lafayette, declares that Warren T. McCray i® not a farmer. • It will strike a good many people that a man who. has been a grain dealer for many, many years, who has owned farms and managed them and spent many days going over every foot of (the ground and who has within ten years developed into a world’s leader a© a breeder of Hereford cattle might be quite consistently be called a farmer and that the only persons who would say that the was not a farmer are those who for political reason© fear to have him nominated for office. Now a little history. Seven years ago the past fall A. J. Law, of Morocco, was a candidate for state senator, opposing Abraham Halleck, of this city. Mr. Law was a banker-farmer or a farmer-banker, just as Mr. McCray is and The Jasper County Democrat went wild with enthusiasm for him, declaring him a farmer without quotation marks and saying it was time to make a change and get rid of lawyer® and politicians and send farmers and businessmen to the legislature and to office. That was seven years ago and now when the republicans (have a candidate who fulfill© every requirement of The Democrat of that eime, that paper and its inconsistent editor tries to belittle the candidate and the farmer in general by using quotation marks about the word “farmer.”

Well may he take fright and well may the democratic bosses, Tom Taggart, J. A. M. Adair and the whole crowd of machine democrats and ■their, newspapers take fright at the candidacy of Warren T. McCray, for they know that to name him means a sweeping republican victory and' the banishment of machine-democracy from Indiana. Warren T. McCray is a farmer. He is a stockman. "He is a grain man. fie is a banker. He is engaged in the stone quarry business. He is a booster, a progressive man, a thinker, a worker, a doer. He is everything that will make a winning candidate for the republicans for governor and he is everything that will throw fright into the democratic bosses and newspapers of the type ,of The Jasper County Democrat, where their candidates are always perfection without quotation marks unless they have been responsible for some disappointments to the ambitions of the editor as was the case when Congressman Peterson selected some one else for postmaster. It is only hoped that Editor Babcock continues his assault against “Earner” McCray. He has been responsible for more republican successes by his attacks than any .editor an the state. That is one thing at .which be is a pronounced success, , : Bit it m a long time before the election and if The Democrat is really

sincere in its opposition to Tom Taggart, Charlie Murphy and the other bosses, it is probable that the editor can not be reconciled to the nomination of another Taggart henchman, such as John A. M- Adair, and we rather expect Editor Babcock to drop the quotation marks and become a shouting advocate of Warren T. McCray for governor.