Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1916 — IF HUGHES IS ELECTED [ARTICLE]

IF HUGHES IS ELECTED

Former Republican Governor J. Frank Hanly has the following editorial over his signature in the last issue of his paper, the National Enquirer, published at Indianapolis: Mr. Hughes and the whole Republican organization are appealing

daily to the Progressives of the country to return to the fold and give Mr. Hughes their support in the campaign and their ballots in November. It is, however, important to the Progressive voters of the countrv who left the Republican partv because of the standpatism and the dominance of the Penroses, the Barneses, the Cranes, the Heminways, the Watsons and the Cannons, to analyze the inevitable conditions that win obtain if Mr. Hughes should be elected, and a Republican congressional and senatorial majority be returned, and to give thoughtful consideration thereto before thev support or vote for Mr. Hiughes. Should the senate be Republican Boise Penrose will become as the ranking member of the committee, of the finance committee; William Alden Smith of Michigan would head the naval affairs committee; Henry A. DuPont of Delaware would step to the head of the committee on military affairs; Francis E. Warren of Wyoming, efficient purveyor of “pork,” would assume the chairmanship of the appropriations committee; George E. Sutherland of Utah, who voted to retain Lorimer in the senate, would preside over the committee on privileges and elections. , and James E. Watson, should he be elected, lifelong intimate and mouthpiece of Joseph G. Cannon and James A. Hemin way, would, without question be given some post of distinction and power. ( onditions in the house would be no better. Joseph G. Cannon would either become speaker, or would be made the head of the committee on appropriations; Joseph w. Fordney, a protectionist of the most purple blood, would preside over and dominate the committee on ways and means, the most powerful committee of the house, and others of like etandpat faith and adherence would preside over and control the other great committees.

As President Mr. Hughes would find himself face to face with a con- I dition and not a theory. Both branches of congress would be organized on standpat lines and dominated by standpat ideals and purposes. Mr. Hughes would be compelled to do business with them. No legislation of any kind could pass either body without their support. These men are veterans and past masters at the game of politics, and Mr. Hughes Would be compelled to surrender to them and submit to their dictation, for without them he would be helpless. They are not men to submit to halfway measures. The terms they would dictate would be unconditional surrender. It is certain as the coming of the nigjit after the day, that the Progressives who voted for Mr. Hughes and helped him to victory, would find themselves left outside the councils of the administration and in the predicament of men who had left the party four years before, because of the dictation, brutal methods and sordid concepts of those in control of the party’s councils and affairs, and had then 'turned about and restored them a gam to power and authority. These men are still unrepentant standpatters. They are appealing for Progressive votes now only as a lift to place and power, and these once obtained, the old ideals, practices and purposes which discredited the Taft administration, will actuate them again. The leopard can not change his spots. He may paint or glass them over, but he can not change them. Should Charles Evans Hughes be elected on November 7. it will not be a twelve-month until the followers of Theodore Roosevelt will be testifying to the bitter proof of this prophecy. Why not avoid humiliation by refusing to join in creating the conditions which are certain to bring it about? It is difficult to understand how a self-respecting man can bring himself voluntarily to pay a price like that, for the empty privilege of voting for Mr. Hughes. r