Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1910 — SEES UNUSUAL INTEREST. [ARTICLE]

SEES UNUSUAL INTEREST.

John W. Kern Finds People of Indiana Interested, Despite “Off-Year.” Considering the fact that it is an "off year,” the present interest in political issues and the campaign, as it is slowly getting under way, is unusual. This is the opinion of John W. Kern, Democratic nominee for United States Senator. Mr. Kern recently returned from Michigan, where be spent part of the summer resting and making his campaign plans. On his way home he made an informal speech at Auubrn, Ind., and since then he has spoken informally in four other cities in different sections of the State. "In my visits to these sections of the State,” said Mr. Kern, “I found every one remarkably interested in the political situation. It is rather unusual for the people to be so much interested in an off year, that Is, at a time when there is no presidential election. But we have an unusual situation, and this, perhaps, accounts for the present conditions. Ever since Congress adjourned the tariff debate has continued. It did not end with the passage of the Payne bill. The people then took it up and have not dropped it for one moment since. This has, perhaps, been the chief cause of the interest in political matters, although the extravagance of the late billion-dollar Congress is receiving much attention.

“Then the split between the real Republicans and the ‘insurgents’ has been another factor, growing, of course, out of the tariff agitation. The fight on Joseph G. Cannon has been prominent in this warfare and has whetted the public interest. The newspapers have been filled from day to day with the great quarrel that is disturbing the Republican party. The Ballinger, Plnchot and Garfield controversies have been followed closely, so that political affairs are uppermost In the minds of readers of newspapers. “These conditions have certainly not worked to the detriment of the Democratic cause. Everywhere I have found Democrats enthusiastic and confident. But they are not idle. They believe we will win, but they knbw we must work.”