Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1912 — OPEN LETTER TO MR. BEVERIDGE [ARTICLE]

OPEN LETTER TO MR. BEVERIDGE

Asked to Explain How the Interests Are Against Him With the Harvester Trust For Him. Dear Mr. Beveridge:— You have been nominated by the Bull Moose for Governor of Indiana, and with your usual fine eloquence you are now engaged in advocating the policies proclaimed in your party platform. You have departed radically from the position you occupied for a quarter of a century in taking up many new isms that you would have denounced in 1896, as you denounced the reforms proposed by the democrats that year, as “anarchistic.” You contend In your keynote that you have long stood for woman’s suffrage, for the initiative, referendum and recall, and for a public utility commission, and insist that the “bosses” made it impossible to incorporate planks along these lines into the old party platforms. -

As a matter of fact, Mr. Beveridge, wern’t you in undisputed control of the Republican state convention of 1910? Didn’t you appear in person before the resolutions committee with a platform of your own which you literally forced down the throats of the committee?

Were you not responsible for leaving out of your platform that year all reference to the county option you now hold dear? —»Anri isn’t it true that you made no attempt to write a single one of the so-called humanitarian measures you now advocate into your platform? And did you have yourself in mind when you said in your keynote that the “bosses” prevented the adoption of such planks? In all your speeches this year you are saying that the Interests are against you. Isn’t it true, Mr. Beveridge, that your chief sponsor now is George W. Perkins, your long-time friend and companion, and that Mr. Perkins is the financial prop of your movement? Isn’t your friend and supporter, Perkins, the financial chairman now, as he was the organizer, of the Harvester trust that robs the farmers whenever they buy twine or tools? Isn’t Perkins one of the heavy men in the United States Steel trust? Wasn’t he long the first lieutenant of J. Pierpont Morgan?

Didn't he play an important part in the stealing of the money of the policy holders of insurance companies to finance the Roosevelt fight in 1904 and didn’t he narrowly escape the penitentiary as a result?

And this being true, and the world knows it is true, isn’t the Harvester trust, the Steel trust, and a portion of Wall street with you and behind you? More than that, Mr. Beveridge, haven’t you at different times received large campaign contributions from Mr. Perkins and don’t you have reasons to know that you will get more contributions from the same tainted source this year?

Then why say the Interests ar« against you while a large portion of the big men of Crooked Business are for you?

In this campaign you are appealing to Democrats for votes on the ground that the Bull Moose movement is not d Republican by-product but a sure enough new party.

Do you still believe as you did in 1896 that the followers of Mr. Bryan sere a crew of “repudiators” bent on dishonoring the flag? Do you still believe as you did in 1900 that the followers of Mr. Bryan are “traitors to the flag”? Do you still believe, as you have insisted for a quarter of a century that Democrats are incompetents or worse and that their leaders, including Jefferson, Jackson, Tilden, Hendricks, Cleveland and Bryan are incapables? And if you are ready to swallow your words along these lines and still Insist that the Bull Moose is not a byproduct of the Republican party why do you not insist on a county ticket in every county? And in counties where you do not put up a county ticket why do you announce that the Bull Moose jnust support the Republican county ticket in every instance and not the Democratic ticket in any instance?

Isn’t it due to the fact that you are now as you have always been a narrow partisan, bigoted in your partisanship—honestly so, perhaps? Honor bright; isn’t it true that you are merely a Republican out of a job? Tours for truth, CURIOUS CITIZEN.