Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 5, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1908 — MARSHALL IS MAD [ARTICLE]

MARSHALL IS MAD

Candidate Marshall is cornered and is mad. He has abandoned his discourses on the “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” and Is now seriously considering the conditions that now confront him in Indiana. But being cornered and mad, he does not discuss public questions with that ju- . dicial serenity and sober seriousness that characterize his lectures on Greece and Rome. Being forced by “Jim” Watson to show his hand, Marshall is making a mess of it. When

pressed-for an answer to this question: "Will you sign or veto a county local option law if elected governor?” Marshall evades an answer by saying that he will not say what he will do until he sees the bill. Being mad, Marshall has turned the vials of his wrath on the preachers of the state because they favor county local option, lrrespectlv# of party. In a speech at Terre Haute, the home of the big brewer, Crawford Fairbanks, Marshall sarcastically said that ministers should preach the gos* pel and not "beat a bass drum in a political procession.” With much more force and reason could the preachers say that it is not the duty or province of the brewers and saloonIsts to dish out “booze and boodle” in a political campaign. It has come to a pretty pass in this country when ministers are criticised by men like Marshall for taking an interest in high moral questions like the temperance question that is now so arousing the people of Indiana. To whom shall the people look for guidance on questions of morals and honest, efficient government? Is It to the ministers and men of intelligence or to the brewers, gamblers and their Ignorant, purchased following? Shall the preachers remain silent while the brewers ply their corrupt and nefarious business? Shame on the man or the party that will condemn the ministers of the gospel and will ally themselves with saloons and brewers!

The Rev. W. B. Reppeto, of Terre Haute, who has been a Methodist preacher forty years, and who served four years In the civil war, commented as follows on Mr. Marshall’s speech: "What Mr. Marshall said about the preachers makes us older men remember what the Southern sympathizers said about the preachers who loved their country and preached against slavery and rebellion. They were told that the ‘holy anointing’ for the ministry made It their duty to ‘preach the gospel’ and ‘let politics alone.’ “It is not politics we are meddling with, but Christianity, the welfare of men, women and children. If Mr. Watson was lined up with the brewers and the cruel liquor traffic and Mr. Marshall stood for giving the people the best opportunity to protect themselves from the presence and blight of the saloon, then Mr. Marshall would find the preachers and churches with him. But the Christian and home-lov-ing people of our country are fast learning to vote just the way the brewers don't.’’