Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1914 — Page 8 Advertisements Column 5 [ADVERTISEMENT]

Indiana was united; now it is afflicted not only with the hopelessness of winning back thousands of the independent element within the party, but with further handicaps in the studied slights of the national administration, in its own lack of capacity in state administration, in the character of its state and several city organizations, and in the general dispiriting indifference to party success which marks the rank and file of the party remaining nominally loyal to the old close corporation of bosses. W ith these indisputable disadvantages, not to mention his own want ot constructive statesmanship, Senator Shively can not hope to be relatively anything like the candidate for gathering votes that Ralston was in 1912. And, in the case of the Republican organization, with its professions of reform in spite of the domination of Indiana Republicans by the bosses who put the permanent* quietus on a once militant party in 1912, there can be no awakening of popular confidence for the old crowd. Standpat rallying cries ring hollow, the publicity agents of the party resort to abuse, invective and ridicule of other parties doctrines and members, and of their own party members who have the courage to point out the cankerous decadence of a residue of a party still the thrall of repudiated bosses. Hugh Miller as the candidate of this party can not hope, and his own Party’s members frankly admit that he can not hope, to carry anything like the strength that Winfield T. Durbin carried in the declining cause when he ran two years ago. Not only is Mr. Beveridge stronger by reason of personal ability and achievements, but he is stronger by comparison with his opponents in this year’s race. The strength is manifested not only in the positive changes that are recorded in precinct polls of voters in various parts of the state, but in the decided revolt that is working to the confusion of the Democratic state organization, and in the turning of Republicans from their old party to the man who has done more than any other individual in twenty years to reflect national honor and renown upon Indiana statesmanship.