Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 October 1920 — REPUBLICAN PARTY AND MONEY [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICAN PARTY AND MONEY

Senator Johnson, though satisfied -with the stand of the Republican •candidate on the league of nations .itesue, If profoundly dissatisfied -with

conditions that prevail in that party, especially as they were manifested at Chicago during the late convention. Writing in the Sunset Magazine for September, he says that, though it is now necessary to fight against what he believes “the menace and the peril” of the league, “we v by no means approve or indorse or yield any sort of allegiance to the system which prevailed at Chicago.” He says: At Chicago those peculiar financial forces in New York, who believe the government "belongs to them and;! that its primal purpose is for their profit, were brazenly directing their willing puppets, who in turn were manipulating delegations. Boldly and contemptuously these financial magnates and those who represented j them politically, denied the right of j the people to participate in a nom- j ination. If the Republican party is to survive as a party of the people,! this system must be destroyed. One regrets that Indiana is chosen as a horrible example, yet such is the fact. We are reminded that at! the primary General Wood received*j 85,000 votes, Senator Johnson 80,000 votes. Governor Lowden 38,000 and Senator Harding 20,000. The state convention instructed the delegates-at-large to support General Wood in

accordance-with the sxpressed wishes of the people. Yet, Johnson says, Senator Watson, the leader of the delegation, himself pledged, both by primary and convention, for, WooH,“was for Harding” from “the first instant he reached Chicago.” Speaking of Watson, and his part in the proceedings, Senator Johnson said: It is of little consequence how he voted during the balloting; in fact he never was for the choice of the people nor for the choice of the convention which selected him. Here was a delegation, therefore, after the people of the state had voted and had given to Wood aiid Johnson 165,000 votes, endeavoring to nominate one for whom only 20,000 of their people had voted. The delegation simply said: “Indiana be damned.” Some of the people who were parties to the recent betrayal of the people come up for re-election this year. How brave they were in I voicing their contempt of the rank and file of the party and the people generally at Chicago! We wonder if, during the' campaign, when they are asking the suffrage of their fel- i low-men, they will have the same courage and express themselves in the same manner. This denunciation of methods and influences, and of tjjie agents through whom they operate leaves little to be said by way of comment. It is both general in its scope and particular In Ittf application. It is, of

course, known that at Chicago, Senator Penrose, though 1,000 miles away, was a sort of director-general. No one outside of the inner circle, believed that Senator Harding was to be nominated. Every one laughed at the prophecy of Daugherty that the candidate would be picked by a group of “tired men” in a hotel bedroom at 2 o’clock in the morning. He was either a remarkable prophet, or he knew what the program was. Certain it is that the people of Indiana, as Senator Johnson shows, did not favor the nomination of Harding. But Senator Watson, so his California colleague says, with a fine disregard for “senatorial courtesy,” was at heart for Harding all the while—that “from the instant that Senator Watson reached Chicago he was for Senator Harding,” even though it was a case of “Indiana be damned.” —Indianapolis News (Rep.). ,