Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 October 1908 — REPUBLICAN CALAMITY HOWLERS [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICAN CALAMITY HOWLERS

________ V [lndianapolis News, Independent Rep.] In the course of an editorial beaded *•1116 Country Will Be Warned," tbs SL Louis Globe-Democrat says It will be the duty of Taft, Cannon, Hughes, Shaw and other Republican leaders to take special pains when they go on the stump to point out the disaster which would come on the country 1/ by any mischance Bryan should be elected. We do not, of course, know what would follow such a program, but we believe that any such calamity howl ing as that would meet with such * rebuke that there would have to be instant and complete shift again of the issues—which is about all that the Republicans have been doing s|nce the Chicago convention. The country is in no mood to stand calamity howlers.

Think of the proposition—leaders of the Republican party, the party that has had uninterrupted control for twelve years, getting up In the midst of a panic that has been pinching us now for nearly a year and people that if they elect the Democrats disaster will overtake them! What is it that has overtaken them now? What are we suffering from? Who is responsible for it? A nice program, indeed, a calamity program would be! What the Republican leaders want to get busy witb Is not seeing visions and interpreting dreams of what may, might, could, would or should happen if the Democrats sbould be elected, blr% what has happened while the country has been in the exclusive control of the Republican party, and what that party proposes to do to bring relief. It is a time for an accounting of stewardship, not the bringing of railing suppositions. * * The people understand this campaign perfectly. They know precisely what the Democrats propose: There has rarely been a platform more incisive than the one adopted at Denver, and no one could be clearer or leas equivocal than the candidates have been. On the other hand, it is true, as Mr. Bryan says, pertinently, in his comment on the president's letter of indorsement of Mr. Taft, no one knows just what Republican doctrine is. Mr. Taft has amended the Chicago platform several times, and there are signs of another movement in that direction.

But the Republicans have been in power for twelve years, and here we are today with a year-old panic on us and the end not yet. What the chances for reform of any kind are under the Republicans we believe the people understand. And right at that point they are going to meditate and on that to act. They are, we think, serious-mind-ed about it and will not tolerate the calamity idea that half the people of this country axe unfit to administer public affairs. And if in the face of this panic this Republican panic— Republican Jeremiahs go up and down the land predicting the kind of things that the St. Louis paper ofTers, they will be greeted by the people with sneers and jeers.