Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 September 1920 — ROOSEVELT COURAGE AGAIN [ARTICLE]

ROOSEVELT COURAGE AGAIN

Lieutenant - Colonel Theodore Roosevelt showed? true Roosevelt spirit, which means courage and patriotism, when he canceled his speaking engagement at the Hamilton club, Chicago, because the Republican national committee had requested him not to take sides in the Illinois state primary fight. Mayor Bill Thompson and the crowd behind him, including the new GermanAmerican alliance, are trying to nominate their candidates for senator and governor. Colonel Roosevelt, the second, says that he “could not speak In Chicago without saying what he thought of Mayor William Hale Thompson,” whose record during the war is known to all. The Republican national committee, however, Wants the support next November of Big Bill Thompson and his crowd. Including the pro-Germans who wrote in Hiram W. Johnson’s name on almost 50,000 presidential preference ballots last spring. To offend these would cost Mr. Harding some votes, and so the Republican national committee took the unusual step of trying to gag a speaker at a meeting of a club whose forum is supposed at least to be open to discussion of Republican affairs. Mr. Harding himself comes out with a statement that he has “no understanding with any groups of any origin respecting our foreign relations.” No agreement is necessary. It is a fact that the GermanAmerican Citizens’ league, the Committee of Ninety-six, Ptjie German Citizens’ Alliance of Queens county, N. Y., George Sylvester Viereck and other “Americans” like him and the German language press are all supporting Harding. It is a fact, too, that Mr. Harding is quietly accepting this support. Moreover, the Republican national committee’s course in the case of Lieutenant-Colonel Roosevelt makes it very plain that it is determined to go to any extreme to prevent these pro-German forces and influences from leaving Mr. Harding.—Milwaukee Journal.