Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1916 — AMERICANISM IS WINNER IN THE WILSON VICTORY [ARTICLE]

AMERICANISM IS WINNER IN THE WILSON VICTORY

Progressive lien and Women of the West Show Power In Good Cause. STAR SAYS ALL IMBECILES Indianapolis News Declares Since Vote* Came From West and South It Is No Indorsement of the President or Democracy. BY WILLIS S. THOMPSON. Indianapolis, Nov. 13.—1 n the reelection of Woodrow Wilson the people of the United States, under the banner of the Democratic party, have won the greatest victory in the history of the nation. It is not simply a victory won by the Democratic party, or by Woodrow Wilson as an individual, although either of these would be a great achievement, but it is a victory of the truest hnd purest Americanism, working in behalf of humanity. It is a victory won by the American people, against many of the most insidious and unscrupulous unAmerican interests; it is a triumph of the broadest principles of freedom, and of human beings, over the narrowest of bigotry and the worshipper of the dollar. It is an endorsement of the greatest administration along progressive lines and great achievements that contribute to the welfare and well-being of humanity that the natien has Aver seen. It is the expression of all true Americans who believe that with the opportunities offered in an administration of four years more, Woodrow Wilson will have made it impossible for the government of the United States to ever again be taken from the control of the people and placed as it was in the hands of standpat and selfish individuals.

The Indianapolis Star, which supported everything that Woodrow Wilson did up to the time w'.en he started his campaign for re-election, and which found fault with everything he had ever done from that time forward, now discovers that it was the mollycoddles of the West, the people whp have no spirit who populate the western states, the people who are afraid to fight, the people who want peace and prosperity when all the rest of the world is engaged in a “glorious struggle” and bloodshedding that? elected Wilson. In plain words the Star says the people who voted for Wilson are imbeciles. It is these people, the Star says, who elected Woodrow Wilson. These, by the Star’s interpretation of the situation, should be classed with half the people of Indiana who also voted for Woodrow Wilson, who are imbeciles and not Americans. They are mollycoddles, unworthy citizens, unfit to be classed, if you please, with the respectable citizenship fff this United States. The editors of the Star, we must assume, are splendid citizens and not imbeciles, since no doubt exists of their adoration for Hughes. The Indianapolis News, which even refused to print paid advertising put out by the Democratic state central committee during the concluding days of the compaign, also finds that “the winning of a plurality of the electoral vote does not necessarily assure to Mr. Wilson the approval of his political policies. The states of Kansas, California and Washington were lost to the Republicans by reason of factional differences.”

The whole world will agree with the Indianapolis News that “factional differences” had a great deal to do with it. In fact, the factional differences was so great that all Republicans who believed in America and American principles and rights voted solidly with the Democrats for the return of Woodrow Wilson. The News says further that the Republican organization in these states which were carried for Wilson was composed of standpat voters of the most pronounced type, and that the people will no longer stand for this domination. God save the Republican party of Indiana if this be an offense. That all the border states on the Mexican line gave their electoral votes to Woodrow Wilson, the News explains, is due to the fact that the citizens are all Mexicans. If the residents of Texas and the other states enumerated are all Mexicans, it is news to the country at large. Since the border states, which would necessarily be supposed to be the first to object to a policy which infringed their rights, the rest of the country in this election may be assumed to have been mistaken in criticising that Mexican policy. These border states do not appear to have been so anxious for an invasion of Mexico and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of good American soldiers, as were the interests of New York and others who 'have their investments beyond the border and want them protected with good red American blood. The Star also assures us that Hughes never criticised Wilson’s foreign policy in the slightest degree. It was so hard to know just what Hughes meant to say on any subject that the Star may be excused for its interpretation of what he said. . So Woodrow Wilson has been elected. The votes of the best AmerJean citizens that ever lived, the most enterprising and progressive American " citizens between the o.eans, elected him. The men and women of the West made his election possible.

For the first time in history Well Street and Wall Street’s domination of American politics, taking control of the government from the hands of the people and placing it in the house of J. P. Morgan and Company, has been repudiated by the American people themselves. That domination has been .repudiated by people who think mord of human beings than they do of the dollar. The millions that Wall Street Eoured into the Republican campaign ad no effect beyond the Mississippi river. Because the South and the West have elected a president, the Indianapolis News finds that the will of the people has not been expressed, ' that Woodrow Wilson’s policies have not been endorsed. Without the approval of Wall Street, the Indianapolis News would have us to believe thers is no endorsement. | The Indianapolis News like the Indianapolis Star repudiated half the people in Indiana as unfit to inhabit the earth because they voted their convictions. Let it be known that in Indiana if the election had been honest and clean Woodrow Wilson would today have the electoral vote by a good majority. While the Indianapolis News proclaims that there was a pure election in Marion county and all over the state, they ignore the fact, which is known, that there were thousands of false registrations, that money was spent freely by the Republican organization in Marion county and elsewhere.

In a brief story the Indianapolis ' News, in a flippant way, wonders where those two thousand registered voters were on election day in Gary. Had the registrations been made Democrats the News would be publishing the charges of crime all over the first page. There were in fact over 2400 of these registrations. The federal grand jury will probably answer the question which the News has asked. Federal inspectors, United .States marshals and agents of the government who were in Gary on election day were responsible for these oyer two thousand illegal registrations put on by the Republicans not going to the polls to vote. The same inspectors operating in Indiana were responsible for the fact that when the Republicans herded colored voters, sending them out in squads of thirty to vote, did not cast their ballots. While it is probably time for plain speaking, it is not necessary here to go into a discussion j)f the many contemptible methods and organizations which were formed at the expense of the Republican national and state committees for the purpose of defeating Woodrow Wilson. Their identity and their mode of operation is too well known. Woodrow Wilson took care during campaign to point them out conspicuously. He not only pointed them out but he denounced them and said he would feel greatly humiliated if any of them should give him support. While Woodrow Wilson was abused openly, but always in general terms, by his opposing candidate, and by those who campaigned and echoed what Mr. Hughes said, at no time during the campaign were the-things which he has actually accomplished ever taken up by his opponent and intelligently discussed. He was slandered and lied about most scandously by the agents of the Republican committees and organizations, who peddled these malicious falsehoods into the homes of the country in such a way that there was no opportunity to answer. So far as the Republicans are concerned, they campaigned without an issue they dared discuss. The only thing for which Mr. Hughes had declared himself in positive terms was for woman suffrage, and then all the women voted against him, evidently not believing that he meant what he said, or that Republican standpatters would allow him to fulfill his promise. If the election were to be held over today, Woodrow Wilson would have four-fifths to nine-tenths of all votes cast in the United States. When he shall have completed another four years, in which the wisdom of his progressive program shall have been fully demonstrated, every progressive voter in the country who voted the progressive ticket will be voting the straight Democratic ticket. All progressives will be glad to be known as members of that party. All Republicans, save the Old Guard who seek office, will also be proud and anxious to enlist under the banner of Democracy, and not in fifty years to come will the Democratic party be put out of power so long as men approaching the standard set by Woodrow Wilson are selected to advocate and represent its cause. When all the frauds have been thoroughly investigated and gone into by the federal court, the chances are that the present Republican majority in Indiana will be considerably reduced by exodus to Kansas and Georgia. The frauds may be found sufficient, even in this election, to eliminate the Republican majority and place Indiana in the Democratic column. Sev--eral congressmen who for a few days ’ have believed themselves defeated may find that they were really elected and the Democratic majority at Washington will thus be added to. Some offices in the state house may also remain in the hands of Demo- { crats if elimination of the votes is allowed because of coercion, false regjstrations, fraudulent voting, purchasing of votes and other offenses prevailing. It is 'strange that papers like the • Indianapolis News and Star can not discover that the registration of two thousand illegal voters in Gary is criminal simply because Republicans did it. In the view of the News there is no crime other than that in which the Democrats are guilty or indicted. The federal investigation in this instance will protect no one. Although the attorneys in charge of the prosecution are Democrats, Democrats will be prosecuted just as severely as Republicans if they are guilty. This will be in strong contrast with the holy efforts of one Alvah Rucker and his Republican political machine at Indianapolis, which indicted 128 Democrats and carefully omitted indicting Republicans, and in the end dismissed all indictments and acknowledged that -there was no evidence of any sort on which to indict, try or convict.