Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 January 1916 — WAS LEE TRAITOR TO PROGRESSIVES? [ARTICLE]

WAS LEE TRAITOR TO PROGRESSIVES?

State Chairman Same Man Who In Spring of 1912 Turned Against , ft— the Republicans. .r. '- .1 .. ' Edwin Lee was the republican state chairman in 1912. As such he made a trip over the state talking with the party leaders and after returning bo Indianapolis came out with his pronouncement against the party that had made him state chairman. This was following his disappointment at not having received the appointment ! by President Taft for United States marshal of Indiana. He then set about with apparent sincerity as a progressive and has since been a member of that party. This year when State Chairman Toner left the progressives in order to identify himself with the republican party Lee was made the progressive chairman. He began to look for a candidate for governor and decided on J. Frank Hanley, former republican governor. He interviewed Hanly and was told that if the platform of the progressives was made over, eliminating the initiative, referendum and recall and the other issues upon which the party had mainly depended and substitute state and. nation-wide prohibition, that Hanly would run. Lee promised. Talk about bosses, that is the most brazen example of bossism ever perpetrated in Indiana. He makes the platform and names the candidate for governor without ascertaining the will of fjie party in any manner. Hurriedly a petition was filed for Hanly and by the provisions of the new primary law no other candidate can now get the nomination. Should tKI party when it meets adopt a platform decline to accept the promises made by Lee, then Manly would withdraw and leave the party without a candidate of any kind. The prohibitionists who had been clinging to Hanly have deserted him because of his sudden shifting of base and those who Were identified with the progressive party but who weft not in favor of prohibition find themselves in a party with that as the sole issue, while those who favored the issues of referendum, initiative and recall find that their state chairman has promised to cut these things out of he platform, leaving a demoralized situation that will find few friends among the progressive adherents and with a candidate who was one of the main critics of the progressive movement ever since it was organized. A couple of years ago Lee’s brother was in Rensselaer for several days and he talked quite freely and said that he was very frank to admit that Edwin Lee’s effort to disrupt the republican pary. was because he .had not been given the office of United States marshal, But republicans were never given a deal quite so raw as tihflt which Lee has handed to the progressives, namely a pledge to sacrifice the principles of the party 'in oredr to find a candidate and to make it impossible for those who opposed him to name any other man for the office. It don’t require any long-distance , spectacles to see the political finish j of Edwin Lee.