Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 February 1918 — OPEN DOOR TO PROGRESSIVES [ARTICLE]

OPEN DOOR TO PROGRESSIVES

HAYS WILL OPEN WAY TO PROGRESSIVES AND SCRAP STEAM ROLLER. ■ • ’ ■ -J “ * ■ , ' The Indiana idea of the “open door” in politics, with the cards on top of the table in sight of the voters, is what Will H. Hays, new republican chairman, proposes to apply to the party. He intends to wipe out 1912; to treat the former moose with as much consideration as if they had remained republicans; to insist that full publicity be given campaign funds and that real itemized accounts be kept, and to sell to the junkman the old steam roller that for years has been an appendage of national conventions.

Since 1912 the Hoosier leaders have brought about amalagamation of the republican leaders and the bull moose that is without parallel in other states. It has been a complete absorption. Hays has been the leader in spongirig out the old lines. He is considered the man who put Indiana in the Hughes list in 1916 and following his election to the chairmanship the republican leaders flooded him with messages expressing their delight over his election. As the republican view it, the national party had a fine housecleaning Wednesday, the old guard was put off watch for the first time in many years, and with the machinery reorganized the spread of the “Indiana idea” though all the states is the thing to which they pin hopes of breaking back into power. Mr. Hays is for making a vigorous campaign to collect a republican majority in congress next fall. One school of thought among the republican leaders has favored a campaign that would not seek to take the majority from the democrats. During the day Mr. Hays sketched some of his views.

“Winning the war is the great thing bfeore us now. The republican party, of course, must be supremelyAmerican.There will be political activity, as every one knows, and it should be open and acknowledged of high character. “Successful politics means assimiliation, not elimination. We do not care how a man voted in 1912 nor his reasons for doing. We go to him today, and if he says he will help, we say God bless you, and we insist he is entitled as to as much consideration as the man who voted with us because he had no reasons for doing otherwise. “Political parties are not instrumental for individuals or groups to use for the personal aggrandizement. Political parties are for the promulagation and practice of principles for the government of the country, for the control of the influence surrounding the home. “Any man who thinks otherwise is not aware of the high privileges of his citizenship; any man who expects or wanfs otherwise today is not in tune with the forces that control at present. And the political party that will command the confidence that brings support is the party that understands this and remembers it.”