Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1908 — CROOKED POLITICS. [ARTICLE]

CROOKED POLITICS.

It is a safe proposition that the political trick that is too crooked to be turned by honest methods is too crooked to be for the good of the people. There is too much of the pumpkin vine in it., ... If the Republican party in Indi-

ana expects to carry the state on the temperance fight as it is now being made. lt started about three months too soon. If the people of Indiana can be fooled into voting the Republican ticket by having their credulity made the plaything of such conspiring patriots as Jim Watson and Frank Hanly, they deserve all they will get. The'entlre program so far followed by the Republican campaigners is based upon g false premise. The condition Jmplied in every campaign argument'advanced is that the democratic party stands for the repeal of the present temperance laws and the Republican party stands for making them more severe. The truth of the matter is that the Democratic platform stands out more plainly than the Republican platform for the strengthening of the present laws, so as not in any way to interfere with the remonstrance rights and so jeopardize the results already accomplished in the cause of temperance. A blind man ought to see that if the Republican plan of county option is carried out, an election to decide whether a county shall be wet or dry will settle the matter for the whole county. The townships already dry will become wet if the county election goes wet, and there is no way to frame a law to prevent it. On the other hand the Democratic plan of voting by townships will in no way interfere with townships already dry. Those townships must first propose, themselves, to hold an election, under the Democratic platform, and no change can come about from an outside source. What will be the result in counties having large cities, if the whole county is forced to vote upon the question, because the large wet district is able to force an election whether the dry townships want it or not?

There is no use fan, any party to make glowing promises. There is just one to look at the matter. The temperance people must either vote the Democratic ticket and so keep what they already ✓have in the way of dry territory, with a chance to get all they can by elections, or they must gamble what they already have against the saloon power with the possibility of losing if they try out the Republican plan of county option. There is no half way ground. And while the temperance people are deciding, they must not forget this fact: The most selfish and corrupt political machine that has ever tried to keep a hold upon the treasury of the state of Indiana is the very machine that is now making this grandstand play against the same saloons that have contributed the money to carry every state election which the Republican party has carried in Indiana during the last twenty years. The Democratic party has nothing to fear from an honest discussion of the temperance planks in the two platforms.—The Hoosier.

It is a curious conception that reckons the surrender of a national bank charter as a defiance of the Attorney-General. If a national bank wants to quit being a national bank and turn itself into a State bank, wherein is the •Attorney-Gen-eral defied? He has made a statement that in his opinion it is not lawful for a national barfk to comply with Oklahoma’s law guaranteeing bank deposits. This is only his opinion and not law. But if it were law, how could it be a defiance of him for a national bank to cease being a national bank? It. is singular how politics will color things. Several national banks in Oklahoma have ceased to be national banks and become State banks for the simple reason that they can not compete in business with State banks, whose are guaranteed, while national bank depositors must take their chances. But if State laws are operative only within a State their Influence is not so limited. Kansas banks are feeling the pressure of competition and it has been said that it can not be a long time until Kansas also passes a guarantee-of-deposits law in order to stop the drain of money from her banks to Oklahoma’s. Is it possible that so “loyal” a State as Kansas, acting thus, might cause a change of “opinion?” And is it possible that there has been here started something that may take the country? See?—Republican Exchange.

John A. Johnson, governor of Minnesota, was nominated for the third time Wednesday., notwithstanding the fact that he has repeatedly said he would not take the nomination if tendered him. When his name was presented to the convention thb cheering, lasted one hour and five minutes, something never heard of before in a state convention.