Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 July 1908 — Tenth Congressional District Nominating Convention. [ARTICLE]

Tenth Congressional District Nominating Convention.

The democrats of the Tenth District will meet in delegate convention on Wednesday, July 22nd, 1908, in the city of Monticello, Indiana, at 1:30 p. m., for the purpose of nominating a candidate for congress to be voted/ for at the November The delegates from the several counties will be selected in such manner and at such time as the County Central Committee of each county shall designate. The several counties of the district will be entitled to the following number of Benton 7 Jasper 7 Lake 14 Laporte 22 Nemton 5 Porter 7 Tippecanoe 21 Warren 5 White 10 Total 98 JAMES K. RISK, Chairman. JAMES W. SCHOOLER, Sec. J. Pierpont Morgan comes out openly for Taft. Carnegie, Rockefeller, Harriman, Standard Oil, steel trust, and all the rest of that old bunch of patriots and philanthropists are also out for Taft. Under such circumstances it would look as if Bryan should get about sixteen million votes next November.

The nomination of Mr. Taft has made Republican party affairs In Ohio worse than they were before. Senator Foraker sent his “congratulations” and Mr. Taft responded, but there was about the same feeling about the performance as that which exists between two prize-fight-ers when they shake hands before proceeding to knock each other's heads off.

J That eminent republican organ, the Indianapolis Star, prints an alleged Interview with that eminent Republican brewer and politician, Albert Lieber, on the political situation. On this foundation, a man of straw is constructed—% political man of straw —at which, with great noise and clamor, all the big and little republicans begin to throw bricks on the theory that they can hurt the Democratic party. As it is strictly a Republican performance no Democrat is going to be disturbed either in his in’ards or out’ards.

The Lafayette Journal (Republb can) says it will help to smooth things over in Indiana if Mr. Taft will have Harry S. New again put at the head of the Republican National committee. But Mr. Taft will do nothing of the sort. When the road roller ran over the Indiana Republicans at the Chicago convention it was intended to put them out of business in national matters. And Mr. Taft’s crowd will keep them out of business. All they ask is that Indiana Republicans come forward with their votes in November and look pleasant.

A recent compilation shows that after the panic fell upon the country last October the banks issued “near money” in the form of clearing house certificates to the amount of $220,000,000. About half of this sum was issued in the central reserve cities like New York, Chicago, Boston, etc., and the remainder at about fifty other places over the country, in amounts from $25,000 up. Besides, thousands of banks practically suspended ments to depositors. No other panic in American history ever produced such widespread financial disturbance.

They are still turning things up in Marion county. Marion county is a “great and rich" county. It, like the state, has "increased in wealth and population” since the Democrats went out of office there in 1894 and the Republicans went in. Rascality has also increased. Like the state, too, which went into Republican control at the same time, official extravagance and thievery have made it hard for the eaxpayers. Taxes have been high, but they have fallen SIOO,OOO a year short of expenses. Two members of the board of county commissioners are under indictment. The bailiff of the commissioners’ court is under indictment. The last Republican, county auditor has been indicted. And the county treasurer, who went out of office last January, has just paid back $22,473 which he had not accounted for. The fact

that a county or a state is “great and rich” and has “increased in wealth and population” will hardly be accepted by the people as an excuse for the reckless and criminal mismanagement of their affairs.

Republican papers In this vicinity are quoting the following extract from a speech made by Attorney General Bingham at Brazil recently, Seemingly with much satisfaction: “It is a great honor to hold office, but it is a greater honor to do your duty as an officer. The president of the Anti-Saloon League came into my office the other day and congratulated me on the suit that I have just begun against the breweries. I asked him if he had seen the man who left my office as he entered. I told him that my visitor was an Independent saloonkeeper and* that he came for the same purpose that he, the antisaloon man, had come.” Mr. Bingham said further that the anti-sa-loon man had told him that he (Bingham) and Governor Hanly had accomplished more in the cause of temperance than all the other forces

in the state for the last twenty years. “I assured him,” said the attorney general, “that I had not got a good start yet. When I get to going there will be something doing good and strong.” From reports of the doings of Governor Hanly's Metropolitan Police Board at Muncie, he hasn’t got “to going some” yet in that city, and it seems that the fool people down there are greatly exercised over the fact that he refuses to "go” any, although his personal attention has been called to the brazen violations of the liquor laws repeatedly by the citizens, and some of them republicans. That neither Hanly or Bingham will “get to going some” until a rotten deal' made with a rotten politician, living in that city, by the name of Cromer, has been carried out, and this will not be for some time yet, In .fact until after the November election, is the belief of the good citizens of Muncie. Some of the local policemen, all of whom are appointed by this board, and are responsible to it and through it to Hanly for their actions, thought that It was their duty to arrest the saloonkeepers when found violating the law, but they were rudely awakened to the true state of facts when one of their number was discharged for doing this very thing.

A REPUBLICAN ADJUNCT. The Anti-Saloon League, which apparently has developed into an adjunct to the republican state machine, is engaged in circulating tracts at church gatherings, where anti-saloon sympathizers are supposed to gather, commending the republican party’s stand for the county unit as a basis for local option. - z The republican party has always boasted that it and it alone, was the “God and morality" party, and that it was against the saloon ; rf that it has passed all the laws on the subject of the abolition of the saloon. Conceding all these propositions, although the concession is false, did they select the county as a unit when they provided means for the abolition of the saloon? Does not the Nicholson law take the township and ward as a basis for remonstrance? Is this law now conceded to be a failure? If it is a failure, whose failure is it? If the county unit is such a good thing why was it not used in this law as a basis for remonstrance? Why did not the republican party m&ke the discovery of this panacea for all the ills that Kitfg Alcohol has inflicted on the human race until the 26th dky of April, 1908? Does the Moore law make the county a unit in its prohibitive features? Did the republican party just discover that these laws, with township and ward as units, are failures? If so, what becomes of these boasts we have heard so much of in the past? . If they have all the brains, all of the morality, all of the righteousness, as they have always claimed they had, how did it happen that these wise and good men did not spring this county unit business 13 years ago, when the Nicholson law was enacted, or three years ago when this same la'W was amended to make it more specific? This county unit law is advocated for another reason entirely. It is advocated by the republican machine to make certain, that in the event it wins at the polls this fall, every county in the state of Indiana In which a city of any size is located, will be surely republican hereafter.

It is advocated for the purpose of clinching the vote of every rumsoaked bum, every thug, every plugugly, every dive-keeper, and the gang of toughs ’that hang around such people, for the republican machine. And if the good people of this state have not foresight enough to see this fact their hindsight will point it out to them very forcibly if we have the misfortune to elect a republican legislature this fall, and it enacts this county unit proposition into law. —ls there anyone so green that he can be made to believe there is the least chance in the world to carry Marton county this fall, or any

other fall, for local option, notwithstanding “Buck town” and its red light districts? Is there one so rash he would assert that a part of Marion county “dry” is not better than all of it “wet?” Counties, in which cities are located, can not be voted “dry” as a whole, neither can they be remonstrated “dry” as the criminal vote in the “red light” districts is always more than enough to offset the urban and the country vote, consequently every county in the state with a city of 10,000 population will be almost certain to continue “wet” under this county ; unit proposition, and the element will as certainly “vote ’er straight” for the party that has been so kind in assisting them to “put' down rum.”