Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 June 1920 — AN AFFRONT TO INTELLIGENCE [ARTICLE]

AN AFFRONT TO INTELLIGENCE

The nomination of Senator Harding is an affront to the intelligence and the conscience of the American people. In making it, the Republican party has put its worst foot forward. The public was prepared for a surprise at Chicago, but not for so disagreeable a surprise. Few observers expected the convention to nominate the best candidate presented to it, but nobody supposed

that it would choose the worst. As the convention assembled. Senator Harding was scarcely spoken of, the reason being that his candidacy was generally regarded as hopeless. None of the long list of names that have figured in the discussion of the nomination had been received with wider or more decided disapproval than his. He was the impossible candidate par excellence. The disheartening thing about it is that it was made not by the old guard alone, but with the connivance of many of those who call themselves progressives. If it had been dictated to a boss-controled convention there would have been hope for the party in a revolt of its better members. But when Kansas on the ninth ballot went solidly into the Harding camp she trampled the progressive banner under her feet and made of her loudly voiced professions of light and leading a scrap of paper. * ,

The nomination is all the worse because it perfectly fits the platform. It is too early to say that the Democrats deserve to win in November, but we have no hesitation in saying that the Republicans richly deserve to lose. —New York Evening Post.