Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 263, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 November 1918 — A GREAT VICTORY FOR WILL H. HAYS [ARTICLE]

A GREAT VICTORY FOR WILL H. HAYS

His friends in Indiana taka a pardonable pride in the success with which Will H. Hays, Republican national chairman, has handled the congressional election campaign that closed on Tuesday, it was not a 'hopeful prospect at the outset. Soon after the President was inaugurated for a second term, the country was plunged into waT. Foreign complications welded the people of this country as they had never been bound together before and there was every indivation when Mr. Hays was appointed, that it would be a very delicate and difficult undertaking to make headway against the national administration in war time. z Mr; Hays handled the situation, from the very start, with a degree of broadminded Americanism that disarmed the opposition. He made it very-plain that the Republicans were just as loyal, and a little more so, than members of the* President’s party. There was no chance to play' the Democrats as a war party when the Republicans were solidly backing ■■ a Democratic President’s war pro-, gram. The danger of creating the' impresson abroad that we, were a I divided people, on War matters, was ■ avoided by the attitude of the Republicans and their The cards were all stacked for a Democratic success. The President and his advisers had practically every- : thing ih their hands. They had, un- 1 limited patronage and opportunities for making political capital at a time when the public was particularly susceptible. A few misplays at Repub- i lican national headquarters very easi-.] ly might have blinded the people to ■ the weaknesses of the opposition. Mr. Hays played his cards with skill, fairly and above, board, and won a .brilliant success under, adverse condi-tions.-—lndianapolis Star.