Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 November 1916 — T. B. RECEIVES FROST, DESPITE POLICE AID [ARTICLE]

T. B. RECEIVES FROST, DESPITE POLICE AID

Wilkes-Barre Miners Strong for Wilson—Others Bolt the Republican Party. “If you love me, vote for Hughes,” is au injunction that proved too hard a strain on the liking that the 75,000 miners of the Wilkes-Barre district once had for Colonel Roosevelt. He tried it on them, in wliat was intended to be the biggest labor meeting of the Hughes campaign, and the result was a frost. Not only did the crowd listen to the Colonel’s speech in stony silence, but Wilson enthusiasm threatened to become so boisterous that Mayor Kosek called out the State Constabulary to guarantee Mr. Roosevelt a courteous reception. The Mayor had denied the miners a permit to give a Wilson parade on the night of the Colonel’s visit, and, when they attempted to violate his order, directed the armed and mounted Constabulary to drive them from the streets. Colonel Roosevelt’s closest friend in Wilkes-Barre, Father J. J. Curran, went out with a reception committee to meet the visitor, but announced that, friendship aside, he had left the Republican party, and was supporting President Wilson. Another Indication of the popular trend in the anthracite coal region- is given in a statement by Stephen J. Hughes, city clerk of Hazleton, and a delegate to the Republican national convention in 1912. “Concerning the unauthorized use of my name as a member of the reception committee for Colonel Roosevelt,” says Mr. Hughes, “I wish to state emphatically: I was a volunteer in the trenches in 1912; the war is not over; I have not been taken a prisoner, and I refuse to surrender; I still am fighting for social and industrial Justice,and I purpose to fight so long as j live.”