Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 160, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 July 1920 — HOW WOOD WAS CONVERTED TO G. O. P. FAITH [ARTICLE]

HOW WOOD WAS CONVERTED TO G. O. P. FAITH

Citizens of Benton county, espo- t cially the older ones, take a keen interest in the achievements of Con-j greesman Will R. Wood, represent tative from the Tenth district of Indiana. Mr. Wood is a native of Benton county and many of the older men there delight in telling of, his activities in his younger days. One of the favorite yarns is that of how Mr. Wood came to be a ro- 1 publican. . | The congressman’s father was a. staunch democrat, and, according to; the old timers, the son was a “chip! off the old block.” Before he was. old enough to vote, Mr.. Wood. taught school at Aydelott, at one | time a frontier hamlet north of: Oxford. It consisted of a general i store, a blacksmith shop and school 1 house. It was here that young Wood first demonstrated to me natives that he had a greater ambition than to be a country schoolmaster. ~~~ Before he could vote (according to one of the men who lived in the vicinity, Mr. Wood was a consistent expounder of democratic doctrine. The late Robinson Timmons conducted the store, and every Saturday farmers for miles around would gather at the village to make their purchases and get their mail, which came once a week. The big pastime of the day was to get the young schoolmaster —who could see red every time something was said against the democrats—-and the storekeeper, into a political debate. Mr. Timmons being just as strong a republican as Wood was a democrat. The arguments were heated and the people would stay late into the night to listen to the two debaters. # So strong were the arguments of Timmens that after Wood went to Lafayette to study law he beeaane a republican and cast his first vote for that party. His record in the ranks of the republicans since he 'attained his majority is a matter of •history. ~ On the other hand young Woods stand for democracy convinced the storekeeper that he was wrong and he joined the democratic party and became a staunch supporter of that party. Thus each party lost a man and gained one, and the old timers of Benton county say both men must have been right in their contentions for each converted the other to his political belief.