Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1911 — WILLIAM E. COX. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

WILLIAM E. COX.

Congressman From Indiana, Once Prosecuting Attorney. , ....J

bacco manufacturers who wish to imploy boys under sixteen years of age and girls under 18 years, which would be expressly forbidden if the bill in its present form Were to become a law. These tobacco manufacturers have brought tremenduous pressure to bear on the Evansville forces and on the house and senate organizations, with the result that the bill as It reached the senate from the house Was thoroughly overhauled in senate caucus and report' d out in such an emasculated form that Representative John J. Keegan, of this city, author of the bill, has declared that he will not permit it to pass the house in that form, and it is believed that he can make his threat good. Keegan contends that the bill if it passes as agreed on in the senate caucus, wou'd weaken even the child labor laws which the senate now has. A great effort is to be forth this week to save the measure in its original form as another step toward the redemption of the party platform. The Boehne Candidacy. The activity of the Democrats from the Evansville district in fighting the child labor bill has undoubtedly weakened the chances of John W. Boehne of Evansville in his aspirations for the governorship nomination in 1912. This candidacy was the chief controlling force in -the house organiaztion and in landing Speaker Veneman, who comes from Evansville, in the speaker’s chair. Everything looked promising for a time for the Bohne candidacy, but the intervention of the Veneman following against the child labor bill has set the union labor forces and the other friends of the measure solidly against the organization, and they will, unless the bill is saved, fight solidly against the Boehne aspirations a year from now. e Keegan, by his superb fight in the house for the measure and by the victory which he won over the speaker and his followers, has made him the logical labor leader for 1912 as far as campaign purposes are concerned, and between Keegan and the Veneman forces it is to be war to the knife unless the child labor bill is saved from its present predicament. . Party Progress Retarded. It Is being freely said about the, statehouse that the Veneman forces, are drunk with power and that their heads have been turned by the success of their coup in landing the house organization. While their power is sufficient, it is held, to defeat any child labor legislation of really valuable nature, it is held that the exercise of their power will work such a hardship on the party in 1912 that it will not only preVent the nomination of Boehne for governor, but will seriously retard the progress of the entire party.

“When conditions in a dominant party become such that a small group of tobacco manufacturers can step in and through control of an organization formed for the purpose of boosting one man to the governorship, defeat the wishes of organized labor throughout the state, defeat the purposes of the state and national organizations who have worked for years to better the conditions of the child laborer and override the wishes of the opposition party, who, following their senator. Mr Beveridge, on this question, join hands with the Democrats in boosting a good child labor bill through, it is. to say the least, a threatening situation,” observed a Democrat in the house who has been assisting Keegan “in the child labor, fight. “It has long been the boast of the Democratic par ty in Indiana that it is free from the control of corporations, and I believe that is true: but it certainly will have to plead guilty in this instance to having turned its legislative organization over to a coterie who are controlled by a tobacco manufacturer It is clearly up to the majority in the week remaining to whip the organization into line or be branded as the foe of the children and the friend of the oppressor of children The party ought not to be made to stand for the blame which a few men in places of power ought alone to be compelled to bear.”