Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 September 1914 — PROGRESSIVE PARTY COLUMN. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

PROGRESSIVE PARTY COLUMN.

All matter appearing under this head is paid for at advertising rates, and Tho Democrat assumes no responsibility therefor.

THE LAFAYETTE MAYOR. In the spring of 1912 Thomas Bauer, present mayor of Lafayette, was an ardent supporter of Roosevelt for the Presidential nomination. He was shocked by the action of the Taft supporters in the state convention, where Will R. Wood presided, and also Chicago convention where Taft was nominated. He joined the Progressive party, was named by that party as presidential elector, and supported the Progressive party throughout the , campaign of 1912. In the mayoralty election a year ago in Lafayette, Mr. Bauer ran as an independent, defeating the Democratic candidate. In this race Mr. Hauer had the support of both Progressives and Republicans, and up to this time had made no public announcement that he was not a Progressive. But no sooner had he been elected mayor, than word went out that Mr. Bauer was a Republican, that he had deserted the Progressive party, and that in the common term, “he had come back.” Mr. Bauer has publicly announced his allegiance to the Republican party, and in so doing has said that be was just as good a Republican A- hen he supported Roosevelt as the Progressive party candidate, as he had ever been. In other words, Mr. Bauer has honestly confessed that he was never a Progressive, that he supported the Progressive party in 1912, not as a Progressive but as a mad Republican.

Now the word goes out that Mr, Bauer has ‘come back.” The fact is, Mr. Bauer never went away; he never was a Progressive, and therefore has not left the Progressive party, but is just where he has always been, a Republican. He has no more “come back” than the Democrat who voted for Taft, or the Republican who voted for Wilson, and who will in the next election vote their party tickets as usual, and yet Republican newspapers attempt to delude theif readers into the belief that Thomas Bauer was a Progressive. The fact is simply this, Thomas Bauer and his kind are partisans of the old school; they have never taken the broad view of the political and social and industrial questions, upon which the Progressive party is builded; they have never seen the coming of the new political day which is at hand, and the man who has not had a vision of this great evolution, cannot be a Progressive. Two years ago, Mr. Bauer, who hadbeen Will R. Wood’s staff and support, would not even converse with ' Mr. Wood at the Hammond convention for nominating delegates to the Chicago convention; he was even shocked at Wood’s arbitrary methods at the Indianapolis convention apd at other daring methods of standpats, but now he again accepts their actions, gives them his support, is fighting their fight, and is altogether where he should be, for the Progressive party does not want men within her ranks, who are not in touch and sympathy with it’s pufposes.

Hartford City, Sept. 15.—The Republican party in this county was given a body blow that has set the county politics boiling over this week. Mr. David Lilly of Montpelier, the Republican candidate for auditor, has come out with a strong letter denouncing the standpatters and refusing to serve as their candidate for county auditor. He says that the ticket made up by the Republicans are all wet and inasmuch as he is dry and stands for the dry cause he can have nothing at all to do with the old gang. He says that there is only one thing for tlfe better element in all parties to do and that is to elect the Progressive county ticket and B. B. Shively, the dry candidate to congress.

WILLIAM H. ADE Progressive Candidate for Congress