Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1915 — NIBLACK SEEKING GOVERNOR’S SEAT [ARTICLE]

NIBLACK SEEKING GOVERNOR’S SEAT

Representative of Knox, Gibson and Vanderburg Counties Declares He Will Be lieinocratic Candidate for Nomination. Indianapolis, March 8.- —Representative Mason J. Niblack of Knox, Gibson and Vanderburg counties, declared yesterday that tie, would be a candidate for the democratic nomination. for governor of Indiana next year. The possibility of his entrance into the gubernatorial race became known some time ago when letters from friends, booming him for the nomination, gained publicity at the state house, and his admission yesterday that he would like to have the place was not unexpected. Mr. Niblack; cptnes from a of

Indiana that has not contributed a governor since Alvin P. Hovey, a republican, who came from Posey county. The last democrat to be elected from the southwestern part of Indiana was "Blue Jeans" Williams, a resident of Niblack’s home city, Vincennes. On the question of gedgrapical . distribution Niblack’s friends., fell that he is entitled to consideration. As a party man he has been active for mure than thirty years. lie comes oi distinguished democratic stock, his father having been a conspicuous democrat of southern Indiana for more than thirty years. After serving as a circuit judge m the southwestern counties the elder Niblack was-elected continuously for eight terms to congress as the representative of the First district, which tlien included Knox county, ’■■d therefater for twelve years he was on the supreme Bench of the state. . •Mason J. Niblack was speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives in the sessions of 1 889 and 1 8.'n, and in 1892 was a candidate for the democratic nomination for governor, with what appeared to be a dear field until the entrance, two days before the convention, of Claude Matthews, who was nominated and elected. Mr. Niblack has been recognized I throughout the present session as one of the most forceful members on the majority side. He is the first democrat to make an avowal of candidacy, ailthough it has been generally understood that iW. It. O’Brien of Lawrenceburg, ‘former state chairman and former auditor of state, will be an active candidate.