Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 October 1905 — HOT FACTIONAL FIGHT. [ARTICLE]

HOT FACTIONAL FIGHT.

Protection Organ Indicts Emi> nent Republicans. ADMITS TENDENCY TO STBAGGLE. Trust Money May Defeat the Reciprocity Faction of the G. O. P.—Great Opportunity For the Democracy to Attract to Itself the Ma** of Independent Voter*. The power of organization is shown by the control of the Republican majority in congress by the Protective Tariff league. Those Republican members of congress who are not stanch for the sacred tariff law or even higher duties are threatened with defeat, und generally the browbeating is so successful that the congressman obeys the imperative mandate of the league managers and complacently allows the people to be plundered by high trust prices for another term. The Economist, the organ of the league, has a good deal of responsibility on its hands in keeping tab of the protectionist floek. Some of the lambs—the new members of con-, gress—are inclined to floek with the tariff revisionists, for they are in pretty close touch with the dear people and are anxiously looking for a renomlnatlon next year. Then such old bucks as Senator Cullom and Governor Cummins have strayed from the fold and have been guilty of addressing the Chicago reciprocity conference. The bellwether, the Economist, says of that lapse of virtue: “Other speeches of greater or less significance were delivered there, but none, we think, which so strikingly In dicated the tendency to straggle and stray from sound party doctrine as the speeches of Messrs. Shelby M. Cullom and Albert B. Cummins. Here were two conspicuous Republicans in attendance upon a distinctly anti-Repub-llcan gathering and contributing their utmost toward the aims of that assemblage." That is equivalent to reading those statesmen out of the communion and fellowship of the stand patters, and it will be Interesting to note if the league can force them back into the fold or will succeed in defeating their political aspirations. Governor Cummins has so often defied the league and been denounced by it that he finds just as good grazing outside of the league pasture as in It, but Senator Cullom has consistently kept within the party fold since the Fremont campaign and doubtless would not have mixed up with the revisionists unless he had arrived at the conclusion that the majority of the voters of Illinois favored tariff reform and that a majority of the Republicans pf that state are for reciprocity. The league organ sees trouble ahead, but is prepared to fight it out on the ultra protection lines, and strongly hints that Senator Cullom and Governor Cummins will be “put to sleep’’ politically by the aid of the cash provided by the trusts and corporations. The Economist concludes by saying: “You cannot poobpooh Cullom and Cummins. They are facts that will have to be recognized as such and dealt with accordingly. The method of dealing with these facts is obvious. The problem is to find out how much of Cullom-Cumminslsm there is inside of the Republican party and then what to do about it” The threat Is veiled, but it does not require much of an interpreter to read between the lines that the great protected Interests which are plundering the public with their high prices have already determined “what to do about it.”

This factional fight in the Republican party will be mainly fought out at the caucuses and conventions that nominate congressmen, and the sinews of war, provided by the trusts, will be enough to turn the scale against the tariff revisionists. If the protected interests are successful in thus defeating the reform element within the Republican party there will be a good many voters of that faith who will take to the wqods and there will be a percentage of independent voters who will throw their votes for the Democratic candidates for congress. Therefore the Democracy must nominate its strongest candidates, especially In the doubtful districts, for there is where the fight for reform will be decided.