Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 November 1905 — MACHINE SLIPS A COG. [ARTICLE]

MACHINE SLIPS A COG.

Republican Reformer Makes a Star! In Xew Jersey. The “corrupt old party” is having trouble with its machine. It is continually slipping a cog, which all the oil furnished by the trusts and corporations. not forgetting the life Insurance companies, is unable to make run smoothly. The latest loose cog is in New Jersey, where the Republican machine has closer and more confidential relations with the combines than perhaps anywhere else. Everett Colby has cleaned out the Lentz machine there on a platform of taxing the corporations and other reforms, and the voters approved it. As the Boston Transcript says, “Those who have read Lincoln Steffens’ story of politics in New Jersey and have given confidence to his Statements must have been convinced that the state offered a rich and inviting field for the reformer or at least the awakener.” Wherever an honest reformer, be he Republican or Democrat, takes up the cause of the people against the railroads he gathers followers to his banner even in the darkest spots, and this latest victory should be an Incentive for others to follow the example. So far, however, these spasmodic reforms within the Republican ranks have proved successful in but one state Wisconsin and there only through the leadership of Governor La Follette after years of ardent endeavor. In other states the voters have wisely joined forces with the Democrats and by the defeat of the Republican ringleaders taught their party a lesson that it is Impossible for it to forget. There is every Incentive for honest Republicans to join with Democrats to stop grafting and corruption, to reform the tariff, to control unreasonable railroad rates, to enforce equal taxation of corporations and Individuals, to reduce taxation and elect honest and capable representatives and other public servants.