Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 July 1909 — LOOKING AHEAD. [ARTICLE]

LOOKING AHEAD.

The Indianapolis News credits the Anti-Saloon League with an Intention to ask both the Republican and Democratic parties to adopt a plank in their next state platforms In favor of state prohibition. As nothing was said about asking the Prohibition party to make such a declaration, it is not known just where, in the opinion of the League, that organization is to come in. As the anti-saloon forces worked hand in. hand with the Republican party in the late state campaign and gave that party’s candidates their support, they have some claim upon it in making preparations for their prohibition campaign. But they have none upon the Democratic party, which they viciously assailed because it would not depart from its longsettled policy of declaring the principle of local self-government. Of course the campaign of 1908 has passed into history, but the last expression of the Democratic state convention is, if platforms still, mean something, party law until it has been changed by the power that made it. The convention of 1910 will take such action as pleases it, but it will hardly contend with the Republicans for the doubtful honor of robbing the Prohibition organization of its one little ewe lamb. Nor can it, with any sort of self-respect, beg leave to consort with the Republicans in their chosen pasture, however, green and juicy it may seem at first blush. Mere expediency has never been a besetting Democratic sin.