Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 208, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 August 1920 — COX AND HIS CHARGES. [ARTICLE]

COX AND HIS CHARGES.

The opinion indulged in these columns shortly after the San Franciscb convention—that Harding would prove the more dignified candidate and Cox the more vivacious one—is borne out by recent utterances on both sides, especially by the excited and ill-considered charges which the Democratic nominee is hurling in all directions. His method is spectacular and bis substance will not bear examination. Mr. Cox recurs to the cheap and unworthy accusation that employers are seeking through the Republican party to utilize the “bayonet” as a weapon of force in controversies with labor. The bayonet is not whit more anachronistic in warfare than this charge is in politics. It can only be prompted by some sort of demagogic purpose toward the labor vote. It can excite nothing but contempt in well ordered minds. It is a day of enormous expenditure in campaign, as well as in every other field of human activity Neither the amount of money a man makes nor the amount he spends for any purpose whatever can be accounted the measure of his guilt in its acquisition or his integrity in its disbursal. If we suppose that the Republican campaign fund were $15,000,000 and the. Democratic $5,000,000, we should know from that fact nothing whatever of the good or evil uses to which the money had been devoted or the motives which animated the contributors. ... Yet the Democratic nominee, witn the campaign fund as yet in its beginnings on both sides, does not hesitate to stigmatize the Republican offerings as an attempt to buy the presidency” and calls them a corruption fund.’’ If the presidency is to be bought, then the American people are for sale; if we have here a corruption fund, then tne electorate or subject to purchase. Such talk is not only unjust, but it comes perilously near to nonsense. One party is no more righteous than the other. Men must not be too quick to impute dishonesty to others in their some line of life- , Yet those with reasonably good memories can take a measure of comfort in the thought that some of those Republicans who are squirming most uncomfortably under the Cox charges are the very same who a few short weeks ago were strutting around in virtuous wrath, attacking the contributions of the Wood and, Lowden campaigns for the nomination and vowing that nobody could “buy the presidency. It is a curious thing to have this petty bit of spite recoil now upon their own heads. Their fight upon Wood succeeded, and . it is not strange, accordingly, that Governor Cox fancies he can employ the same tactics successfully now. On the League jai Nations the nominee acquits himself with adroitness, but not. very gonvincely. He is evidently troubled similarly with Harding to hold his party together; for while the senator occasionally throws out a sop to the Republican friends of the league, the Governor is alert to promise frequently a reasonable compliance with desires for reservations that will preserve the integrity of the It looks very much as if both will be rewarded in this -respect. Hardly any prominent men of either side have yet announced unwillingness to follow their nominee, much as they may differ from "his views on this important question. However public men and self-re-specting newspapers may. appeals for them to abdicate their reason and intelligence, they are almost without exception coming to realize that for the purposes of the campaign the league serves as a mere doormat for the welcome of party allegiance. This great i ßß u®» with all its world-wide meaning and possibilities, takes its place along With other regulation Properties of the political stage as. a thing to juggle around with in the quest for votes. The spectacle is a melancholy one, but such is the nature of die battle and such its commanders. “No more supermen is the cry. Well, we haven’t one on either side, and will simply .have to make the best of it.-Indianapohs Star. -