Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1916 — FIRST SPEECH OF GOVERNOR [ARTICLE]

FIRST SPEECH OF GOVERNOR

Effectively Replies to Attacks Made on Administration. Newcastle, September 28.—Speaking before a capacity audience at the Alcazar theater here this afternoon Governor Ralston, in his first speech of The campaign, replied to attacks made on the state administration by James P. Goodrich, Republican nominee for governor, and Senator Thomas Taggart, the other speaker, declared that a change from the present prosperous conditions under the Democratic administration to uncertainty would be sheer folly. Senator Taggart made a plea for the re-election of Woodrow Wilson and Thomas R. Marshall. "President Wilson has kept us out of war,” he declared. “It has been through his superior diplomacy that America today retains a neutfral position.” He defended the President in the strongest terms and scored those who had criticised his Mexican policy or complained because there had been no interference in the hotbed of European war when Germany intraded Belgium. Senator Taggart declared that for .the United States to interfere at the suggestion of a few explorers and

prospectors, who were trying to enrich themselves at the expense of Mexico, would unworthy of a great nation sucn as the United States. Taking up the tariff question, Senator Taggart declared that with the passage of the Underwood tariff and the recent tariff commission bill the tariff question had been taken out of politics. He praised the farm loan and federal reserve bills, declaring them of more benefit to the American farmer and the common people than any other laws enacted by congress. Governor Ralston launched directly into an attack on the efforts of James P. Goodrich and other Republican orators to discredit the state administration for extravagance. He condemned Charles E. Hughes for opposing the Adamson law, asserting that if the Republican nominee had been sincere in his view of the law he should have notified the Republican congressmen to use their efforts to defeat the measure.