Jasper County Democrat, Volume 18, Number 60, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1915 — Newspapers Should Not Uphold Crooked Officials. [ARTICLE]

Newspapers Should Not Uphold Crooked Officials.

One of the things about politics is that some men who get into office and get crooked, don’t quite understand why their party doesn’t back them up in their crookedness. Esi pecially i 8 this true of their feeling toward party papers. They think a newspaper should support them regardless of what they may do. But the time is fast coming when party papers will be so independent of politics they will not support a man who has ever been crooked in anything. It's a safe bet that a crooked

civilian will be a crooked official, and it will be up to the party papers to see to it that a crooked civilian (no matter. how loyal a party man he may be) is not nominated. It may be a bit out of “tune” for a paper to “dip in” helping its party select a ticket at the primary but it is a duty it owes to the people and its party, to keep dishonest men from office, and the only way it can do that is to take a hand in the primaries. Anyway, a newspaper is expected to support its party ticket after it is made, and we never could understand why it should not “take* a hand” in its making. The editor has just the same right to line up for or against some particular man as has the professional politician. The politician never hestitates to get in the fight for his friends (who, more than likely is not a friend to the editor) and there is no reason at all why an editor shouldn't get in the fight for his friend, but always keeping in mind the fact that that friend must be a clean, capable man.

After a ticket is made it is up to the editor to “whoop’er up” and the sironger the “whoop’er” the better the candidates like it. Some of the candidates, after the election, if successful, join the opposition and assist in giving their party editor the proverbial “swift kick.” It is this “swift kick" that is making “whooping 'er up” about a thing of the past. If a newspaper is good enough (‘ services satisfactory,” you know) to make the fight for the party candidate, (and “unsatisfactory’’ afterward) it certainly should be gooenough to get the patronage of these candidates when they become office holders. If not, we do not know by what line of ..argument the office holders can make themselves believe the paper should give them “undying support,’' even when they tote fair with the taxpayer.—Bedford Democrat.