Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 103, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1908 — A CAMPAIGN OF DEFAMATION [ARTICLE]

A CAMPAIGN OF DEFAMATION

The Democratic candidate for governor of Indiana, Mr. Marshall, tn hit utterances at the beginning of the campaign made a noteworthy and altogether a laudatory appeal for a campaign this year in which measures rather than men should be discussed; from which personalities should be rigorously excluded. This appeal .from the leader of the Democratic state ticket for an impersonal campaign appeared to be so sincere that It was well-nigh pathetic. It was pitched on a high plane, and the Republican newspapers took Mr. Marshall at his word, and, furthermore, scores of them complimented him for what seemed to be a notion that is in harmony with the view of political contests that broadminded and intelligent iqen hold. We did not doubt Mr. Marshall’s sincerity • then. We do not question It now. But it is true, unfortunately, that many of the politicians of the state on whom Mr. Marshall’ depends for his support are doing exactly the thing that Mr. Marshall, in formal speech, condemned.

The men most active in the prosecution of the Democratic state campaign, the organization of brewers and liquor Interests that is making the real campaign for the Democratic state ticket, are conducting against the Republican nominee for governor, secretly and sneakingly, a desperate campaign of deception, defamation and slander. Their work of libel is carried on in every part of the state, quietly and under cover usually, although at times these agents of the brewery combine break out in public under pressure of great excitement, as was the case at Marion’the other day, when James Corbett, a wealthy brewer of that town, lost his temper and paraded the open streets, denouncing Mr. Watson personally and abusing him in unprintable language. This Corbett is wide of girth and loud of mouth, and he has when his blood is up all the insolent arrogance of many men of sudden riches who acquire their cash in the manufacture and sale of beer. Corbett heard Mr. Watson’s speech setting forth his position with reject to the county local option plank in the Republican state platform. In a great rage Corbett sought the street and in front of one of the prominent hotels delivered himself of the declamation, of which the following, many times repeated, is only a specimen:

“Jim Watson is aG — d — b —s —d,” fairly shrieked the Infuriated representative t»f the brewery alliance, “and any man who would vote for him is a G — d_ b—s—d! I am worth $400,000, and I’ll spend $50,000 of it to beat him!” To the saloons these emissaries of the alliance which seeks to prevent ‘the enactment of a county local option law picture Mr. Watson as a man who, tn the governor’s office, would be “harder on them than Hanly,” which is a clinching argument to the average saloon keeper. To temperance Democrats other agents of this conscienceless combine whisper all sorts of slanders, inuendoes and insinuations against the personal character of the Republican nominee, coupled with the suggestions that his declaration of loyalty to the county local option planluof the Republican state platform is Insincere; that he is in secret sympathy with the liquor interests; that his support of the local option principle is simply for expediency’s sake. It matters not to these cormorants of society that James E. Watson’s personal character Is unassailable except by covert and slinking slander; that his home life with his wife and his sons and daughters is the ideal of the American home; that his private reputation Is as devoid of blemish as his public service is clear of suspicion. They in their warped and twisted estimate of men, can not understand the Watson type, a man dean, virile, courageous, strong in the confidence that possesses manly men. and as such proof against all the libels that can be conceived in brothel and hellhole and uttered from wineroom and brewery saloon. Bryan never gets off with the old. old love whenever he*s on with a new He keeps a harem of old issues, and while his latest love is the one alone presented to his friends the voters, the older sweethearts are coddled In his isolated hours. The Opening words of his “speech of aooeptance" disclosed thia tailing at Us. I» the matter M b- * san va*