Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 228, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 September 1916 — LITTLE BITS OF INDIANA POLITICS [ARTICLE]

LITTLE BITS OF INDIANA POLITICS

Q. —What is scarcer than Chink policemen? Ans.—lndiana Progressives who intend to support the Democratic party. Registration day will fall on Oct. 9. Don’t forget that your name must be on the registration lists before you can vote at the November election. The Democratic machine will miss the efforts of Donn M. Roberts and his associate’ballot thieves this year. No one knows how many thousands of illegal votes that Terre Haute outfit placed in the ballot boxes for the relief of the Democratic organization during recent campaigns. Figures, ordinarily, do not make interesting reading, but it has remained for James P. Goodrich, Republican candidate for Governor, to find an exception to that rule. In his speech at Greencastle on August 24, Mr. Goodrich pointed to many interesting tables showing Democratic inefficiency, but probably none stands out as boldly as his showing of the saving that the taxpayers of Indiana would have enjoyed had the state’s affairs been administered during the last three years as efficiently as they were under the last four years of Republican rule. He points out, and rightly, that in the last three years $1,497,475.48 could have been saved if the state’s affairs had been conducted efficiently. More than a million dollars is a pretty price to pay for inefficiency, promises and mismanagement!

“Let us not underestimate the , strength of our opposition.” —John A. M. Adair in his Democratic keynote speech at Fort Wayne. I If every sentence uttered by him gave his party such good advice, what a political sage he would be! 1 —F— I The question of salary increases for the term for which an official is elect-, ed is hammered down-'and clinched by James P. Goodrich. Without any Ifs or ands or any sidestepping whatever, he proposes to submit a constitutional amendment forbidding the increase of salaries of office holders for ( the term for which they were elected. He does not propose a statute on ffie subject that could be passed by one Legislature and replaced by the next, but he proposes to put it in the constitution, which can not be repealed without much difficulty. “No man can offer a plausible or sensible reason why our party should not be continued in power both in state and nation.” —John A. M. Adair,' Democratic candidate for Governor. | Your party, sir, increased Salaries and created new offices and new, boards which is now costing the people of Indiana $275,000 a year. Under the managemnt of your party the per capita cost of maintaining the state’s charitable and correctional institutions jumped from $167.78 to $207.87, and your party has placed undeserving Democrats on the state’s pay roll without justification. Ifthese reasons pre not “plausible or sens : ible,” undoubtedly Mr. Goodrich will be able to find plenty that ARE “plausibe and sensible.” Speaking of efficiency in public offices, here are more interesting figures obtained by Mr. Goodrich from the state’s official record: One institution paid $4.60 a barrel for flour, and another institution paid $6.90 a barrel for the same commodity. In a given month one institution paid sl2 a hundred pounds for WHOLE BEEVES, and another institution paid sll a hundred pounds FOR FORE (QUARTERS. With this slipshod business method, is it any wonder that the voters of Indiana have made up their minds on what they intend to do at the next- election? “The fact Js, we have lost more (business because of the war than we have gained by reason of the war,” says Mr. Adair in defending the Democratic tariff. That seefns hardly “plausible br sensible,” Mr. Adair, but when the battle of November 7 is fought the official reports -will show that the losses suffered by the Democrats in this political war will be ••replete and irretrievable. s