Rensselaer Republican, Volume 20, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1888 — INDIANA DEMOCRACY. [ARTICLE]

INDIANA DEMOCRACY.

Indiana, although no longer an October State, is still seoond in importance only to New York, and in the altogether probable event of a solid Republican vote from New England it would be of equal importance to New York from a Presidential point of view. The Democratic State Convention which met at Indianapolis jliursday may prove to have determined the result in November next. It was certainly fraught with deep significance. * The notable feature of the proceedings was the unconditional surrender of the party to renegade Republicans. Gov. Gray, who belongs in this category, yyas put i forward as the “favorite son” of Hoosierdom and a formal candidate for the Vice Presidential nomination. In this he find to ride, rough shod and ruthlessly over the natural leader of the party in that-state, ex-Senator McDonald, and disregard the known but hardly suppressed ambition of Senator Voorhees. Notice was served upon the old- timers that they must go to the rear and abandon their, ambitions. This notice was doubly emphasized by the nominations made for Governor and Lieutenant Governor, both Matson and Myers, the nominees for those offices, being also renegade Republicans. Obviously it is a disqualification in an Indiana Democratic convention to have been an original Democrat The policy is to put a premium upon desertion. The resbrutions were “reported by William H. English, and they bear the- ear-marks of Democratic platforms. They see nothing good in the Republican party, nothing io critise in the Democracy, together with the usual demand for free trade and free whisky, with certain shallow and sham endeavors to so hedge as to give a double meaning to the platform as a whole. There is a suggestive silence on State matters, and an evident desire to divert attention from home politics. Considering the frauds perpetrated in the interests of the Democracy and the criminal conspiracy formed, as shown by court proceedings which are still fresh in the public mind, this disposition to turn the attention of the public in other directions can occasion no surprise. The resolutions go so ‘far as to bring up again the contest of 187677 with its sequel. Do the Democrats of Indiana propose to drag the late Vice President Hendricks from the grave and rattle his bones over the corduroy road of politics? That thing has been harped on until, it can move no responsive chord. On the contrary political fraud, in the present dictionary of Indiana, means the rascality by which Senator Turpie came to occupy the seat which rightfully belonged to ex-Senator Harrison. Indiana is really a more hopeful field for Republican work than New York. The present Congressional delegation from that State stands six Democrats to seven and this division fairly indicates the-chances of[the two parties.' The Republicans are just a little ahead iu the line of probabilities. They carried the state in 1880, and again in 1886, losing it in the intermediate year, 1884, but their majority in ISSb'was nearly three times larger thau that of the Democrats in 1884. Now that the Democratic convention has been held, and has antagonized the McDonald element of the party, the outlook is peculiarly encouraging, especially if the National Republican Convention should, as it is likely to do, place an Indiana man in nomination for the Presidency. —Chicago Inter Ocean.