Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 189, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1918 — DIRTY MUD SLINGERS [ARTICLE]

DIRTY MUD SLINGERS

DEMOCRATIC GANG THAT MET AT HAMMOND WERE UNREGENERATED demagogues. The following are extracts from the report of R. T. Buchanan,, staff correspondent of the Indianapolis News, of the Democratic meeting held in Hammond last Friday: Hammond, 'lnd., Aug. 17.—Insinuations and accusations of disloyalty to the country on the part of Republican leaders of Indiana, including Will R. Wood, representative in the congress from the Tenth Indiana district marked a Democratic state conference for the Tenth district here yesterday. Perhaps the bitterest attack was made by Edwin F. McCabe, of Williamsport, nominee for the Indiana appellate court, who read a speech in which he reviewed the accomplishments of the Wilson administration and said the Republicans “never discovered our unpreparedness until they were out of power.” The speaker critized the Repuublican state platform on the ground that it had no word of censure for the kaiser and was silent about the teaching of German in the public schools.

“So when they profess loyalty and a desire to support the administration,” he said, “we are bound to say ‘The voice is the voice of Jacob, but the hands are the hands of EsaU.’ ” Mr. McCabe went on to say that the Republican platform was a “long string of whining, scolding accusations. It is dictated by a spirit of rebellion and, before God, I believe that it originates in the sam’e malignant late of the constituted authorities as animates our enemies abroad.” He asked: “Is this the example set by Washington and the fathers of this republic} or is it the example set by Benedict Arnold?” Frederick Van Nuys, of Indianapolis, state chairman, said the Republicans in 1916 got the “wet” vote and double-crossed it, got the “dry” vote, the church vote, spent $275,000 in the campaign, and yet carried the state by a majority less than what he said was the “nigger” vote of Indiana avenue, Indianapolis. Willis A. Fox, of Angola, candidate for state superintendent of pubic instruction, referred to Watson, Senator New and Governor Goodrich as “near-traitors.” In the same issue is found the following extract: > , New a Liberty Loan Speaker.

Washington, Aug. 17.—Senator New has been invited by George Forrey, chairman of the Indiana Liberty loan speakers’ bureau, to make a series of speeches in the state during the next drive. The senator answered that he would be more than glad to make the speeches if he could arrange his work. Is there a Republican who can stand for such abuse of those named above by the party which he remembers to have contained after the Civil war, without exception, every “Yellowhead’* and “Knight of the Golden Circle” in this country? Is politics dismissed? Are not the Democratic politicians the same old gang that we have been fighting all our lives? The Republican party is the child of loyalty. It was born to save the Union. It has always and will always stand for the best interests of the Republic. Even in the face of Democratic demagoguery and abuse, the face of insult and falsehood, every Republican in office and out of office is doing everything in his power to help win the war. For a Democrat to challenge the patriotism and loyalty of a Republican is like* Judas Iscariot questioning the sincerity of Jesus Christ. The Republicans just as well open their eyes to the fact that it is the same old bunch and that they deserve the same good licking that we administered to them so many, many times in the last fifty years. The call is to stand by the party of quick, decisive and efficient action. The party whose members are 100 per cent loyal in office and out of office.

More Republican soldiers, more Republican service and more Republican dollars are going into this war than the Democrats dare to claim. The Democrats howl “disloyalty” if Republicans dare open their eyes and see the continuation of mistakes and lack of efficiency that has always marked the rule of the Democratic party. . . Indecision and watchful waiting allowed the cause of humanity to suffer such a near defeat that it will cost the lives of thousands of American soldiers and billions of American money to drive back the tide which has become such a flood, but which could have been stilled as a mere ripple. It will take, if not the body, at least the spirit of a Theodore Roosevelt, to make the ending of the war unlike the beginning, a matter of procrastination and watchful waiting. Republicans- will support in every way the War policy of the government. They will continue that loyal patriotic service that has marked every moment of the life of the party. Whether in office or out of office they will stand four-square to every duty. They have, however, a conviction,

born out of long and varied experience, that the people desire the very highest degree of efficiency in governmental affairs and that efficiency can be had by placing the affairs of the government in the hands of the party of Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt and Howard Taft, whose birthplaces were in states that have never faltered in their loyalty to the Union and the party that has loved the Stars and Stripe? as they have loved their own souls.