Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1914 — PROGRESSIVE PARTY COLUMN. [ARTICLE]

PROGRESSIVE PARTY COLUMN.

All matter appearing under this head 1b paid for at advertising rates, and Tho Democrat assumes no responsibility therefor.

B. F. SHIVELY'S RECORD SHOWS HIM REACTIONARY. What law has Senator B. F. Shively, the Democrat, put through? What great measure has he carried over for the people? What has he done at Washington to give him any standing with Indiana people? Shively was woefully handicapped at the start, six years ago, by the manner and method of his forced election by secret ballot in a manipulanted Taggart caucus. His friends were openly charged with buying eight legislative votes in order to make him senator. This charge was made by Shively’s opponent, John W. Kern, who has never withdrawn the serious accusation. The record shows Senator B. F. Shively has missedmore roll calls this year than he has been present. This Is not the sort of service the people have a right to expect. Shively failed to vote 65 times on the various obnoxious schedules of the Payne-Aldrieh tariff bill, failing to vote more often than he voted, thus leaving the people, so far as he was concerned, absolutely at the mercy of the big interests that made that law. More than half the time Shively left his people unprotected when the tariff was being outrageously manipulated for the big interests. Senator Beveridge at the same time was making a day and night battle for the people. This year it is to be Beveridge or Shively—on the record. Shively failed to vote on the confirmation of W. M. Daniels to be a member of the Interstate Commerce, Commission. The railroad men were for Daniels. The men who. fight railroad encroachments were against Daniels. Daniels was confirmed, and Shively’s people were not represented and had no say in this vital matter, one way or another. It is up to those same people to put a man on the job who will be on tihe job when the people need his vote. Senator B. F. Shively absolutely failedt he people when he voted, April 8, 1914, in the Senate, for “secret sessions” as against open sessions. The opposition for open sessions lost by just one vote. Shively could have changed the result. He voted with the interests that work in secret back of locked doors. Indiana people ought to see to it that this “secret session” man is displaced by an “open session” man. Mr. Shively is the product of the secret caucus and secret ballot. His conduct in this vote can easily be explained. He was ”raised” that way. Mr. Shively “failed to vote” on the equal suffrage amendment. Of course this was another dodge of a big issue. On this matter the yeas were 36 and the nays were 34. The man who failed to vote might have turned the tide for the women of the country. But he was not on the job, aiid of course, being backed by Crawford Fairbanks and the brewers, and being, as Mr. Kern said, “a brew ery attorney,” Mr. Shively could not be counted on to vote for the women’s amendment. IT he had had courage to take a stand, or if his vote had been needed, he would have voted against the women. This is his record.

Mr. Shively favored the direct election of Senators, when he was not needed, and when it became inevitable. He will get his fill of the operation of this law this year. Shively voted against a full investigation of the steel trust when the trust was charged with rebating. He voted against Lorimer. He voted against Judge Archbald. He dodged the vote as to the right of post office employes to organize. He voted for the eight-hour law for government employes.He voted for the administration currency bill. When ah attack was-made on the parcel post, with an amendment which would have put rate-making in the hands of Congress and of the hands of experts. Shively deserted his post and left the people at the mercy of the express companies. By not voting he befriended the interests and betrayed the public. Shively voted for the Webb bill. He failed to take a stand on LaFollette’s seamen’s bill. On th'e Republic coal bill and the Alaska railroad hill Shively ducked and did not vote. Indiana might as well not have had a Senator at Washington, so far as Shively counted one way or another. This was true of one important and vital bill after another.

To get at what this neglect or duty means, consider 'the Republic coal bill. A scheme was on under which $30,000,000 worth of coal lands were to be sold by the’ government to grafters for $82,000. Where was Shively when this grab was being attempted? “Not voting.” It is time to get rid of this “not vqting” Senator. Shively voted for the water power

trust in the case of the Connecticut river dam bill. The measure was intended to give the government power to collect pay from water companies for the valuable use of water power sites. Shively stooa against the people on this important proposition. In short, he is a Ballinger sort of Senator and against real conservation, which puts him out of the class of progressive public servants.

After voting for the Panama Canal tolls law, Shively flopped and supported the railroads in repealing the law which had been demanded by the Democratic platform of 1912. Pekrson’s Magazine says of Shively of Indiana: “A study of his record shows he dodged many important votes and voted Wrong on most of the important ones on which he is recorded " In other words, he was present and voting when the big interests needed him most and he was “not voting” when the interests had enough votes without using him. ’ —:—:o: . Thomas Taggart has gone on the stump to tell the voters of Indiana of the beauties of the French Lick brand of government. Donn M. Roberts of Terre Haute, also is being routed hv the Taggart speakers’ bureau. ——— :

TAKES BRYAN TO TASK FOR “REGULARITY” FRY John \V. Kitch, Former Admirer of Commoner and Leader in Party, Objects to Attempt to Hide State ’Ticket Rehind Wilson. Greenburg, Ind., Oct. 12.—1 n a speech tonight at Burney, Decatur county, John \\, Kitch, for years known as a WUson-Bryan democrat of large influence in South Bend and northern Indiana and this year an active supporter of the progressive state and local tickets, portrayed the situation into which William J. Bryan has been led by the bosses of the Taggart-Kairbanks democracy of the state. ‘William J. Bryan has been the most remarkable orator of the modern world,” said Mr. Hitch. “I am one of the commonest citizens of a small community in Indiana, and yet 1 dare do something in this campaign that it seems Bryan with all his prestige dare not to. I dare tell the truth about the situation in Indiana. “I have been an admirer of the great commoner since 1890. six years before he became a presidential candidate. I voted for him three times he was a candidate and had always expected to vote for hint if he ever ran again. Bryanism was a sort of religion to me. “My sympathies were with him in the Baltimore convention in 1912. But when he comes into Indiana and tells me and the democrats of this state that a vote for Homer Cook. Dale Crittenberger and the other nianikens of the Taggart-Fairbanks bunch, is a vote of confidence in Woodrow Wilson and his administration, I am surprised, disappointed and nauseated at his insincerity. Jiis hypocrisy and his truckling to the necessities of the worst gang of political pirates that ever scuttled a ship of state or looted the treasure house of an honest, industrious and enterprising people. Mr. Bryan s Indiana campaign in 1904 was a disappointment to nia:i> honest democrats. It was generaliv known that Bryan would rather have seen his Satanic majesty j n the presidential chair than Alton B. Parker. ■'But Bryan vaJ excused on the ground that having been twice the candidate of the democracy, and having been the victim of party traitors, he was justified in his regularity. ' “The democrats of Indiana, however, did not share Bryan's feeling of regularity, and what they did to Parker will long be remembered. Mr. Bryan says now that we must not separate state from national issues. When he went over his own state ot Nebraska and campaigned agaipst the notorious Jim Dahlfnan, candidate of the democratic party for governor, he was «ot afraid to separate state from national is- ; sues. \ ■ I "In his preachments against the corrupt Ro£er Sullivan machine in Illinois, he has not been so careful of his lealty to democratic candidates and yet he is advising democrats in Indiana today to stand by a worse machine than Sullivan ever had iB order, as he says, that the great peace President may ’not suffer in his administration at~Washington. "It matters not. if he holds his nose to keep the stench away as he goes over the state with this gang of political buccaneers. | “He has shown himself less a pa-

triot and less a courageous statesman than ever before in hia whole life. “I can see only one of three excuses for Bryan’s action in this campaign. He is grossly ignorant of the situation in this state; or he has laid -aside his high ideals and become a mere partisan office seeker and spoilsman,-or he has prematurely aged aifd in his dotage is floundering around the country in an irresponsible and unknowing way, controlled by shrewd, unscrupulous political masters. ‘“I prefer to be charitable to the man I have followed so long and say that he has been misled and misinformed.” 1 ——:o: PRAISES B. B. SHIVELY.

Hitch Declares Democrats Have Lost One of Best Men. Winamac, Ind., Oct. 20.—John W. Kitch of South Bend, a former democrat, who has rebelled against the state machine and is now speaking for the progressives in the state, addressed a large audience here tonight. He emphasized the necessity for new legislation which both old parties deny is needed. “The democratic apologists for the infamous legislature of 1913 cite the public utilities law as one of the great beneficial measures of that body,” said Mr. Kitch. “You democrats of Pulaski county have a chance in the coming election to show your appreciation of what is good in that law. It was framed by Bernard B. Shively, the brilliant young democratic state senator, who is now the progressive candidate for congress in this district. If the machine had kept its hands off of Shively’s work and left it as he constructed it, and if the governor had appointed a commission interested only in the welfare of the people, the state might have been benefited by it and the democratic party might have rightfully pointed to it as some real constructive legislation.

Shively, like a, lot of other good democrats, has sickened of gang rule in the democratic party. He is too clean and too independent for a Taggart tool. That is why he is against the machine this fall. Wouldn t you rather have a congressman like that than one of the fellows who dare not say his soul is his own and who has to take his orders from French Lick and his political ideas from the breweries?”