The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1876-01-31
The situation in Indiana.

HOntlcS are getting warm and bid fair soon
to be at fever heat. Indiana is politically
| close state, and the party leaders have COM
menced marshalling their forces, getting
them into line. seeing they are properly
Of6cered and ready for action. There is no
division among Democrats. They are thor
oughly united and ready for the onslaught
upon the enemy's lines. Their organization
is yet to be perfected, but should the Ma
tional Democratic Convention nominate
Governor Hendricks, they will march as one
man to battle and to victory. Their onset
will be Irresistible, and everything in their
path must give way. While they are pre-
pared to support the candidacy of any
nominee of conservative principles and pa
triotic impulses, they desire and expect the
Democratic banner 20 be borne by the able
statesman who is now governor of Indiana.
With him at the head of the ticket
there is no room for doubt as
TO the result in this state, and should an I'M
Objectionable man be placed on the ticket
with him, assurance would be made doubly
sure.
The Republicans are in condition widely
different from the Democrats. Senator
Morton is the acknowledged head of the
party in this state, and being the almoDer
of the federal government, has drawn
around him the captains of the tens and the
hundreds. But there are many Republicans
of the rank and file who repudiate his
leadership. . While admitting his ability
they have no faith in his political honesty.
They have seen him on both sides of the
leading questions of the day, and believe
his principles are cast in moulds, fashioned
and shaped to serve his personal ends. A
Democrat by birth and education he re-
manned in the party until all hope OF Office
disappeared, and then with the agility of an
acrobat, he vaulted across the party bars
and landed where pastures were green and
pickings good. Opposed to negro suffrage,
at the close of the war he made speech at
Richmond in this state noted for the
strength of its arguments against bestowing
the elective franchise upon the black man.
But when suffrage was guaranteed the negro
by constitutional provision, he became
the peculiar champion Of this race. In his
place in the Senate he has often wrought
himself into frenzy when speaking of the
wrongs of the black man, and those who do
not know his antecedents have imagined
his distress to be the concentrated agony OF
a lifetime, instead of the accommodations ofthe
few years since the negro has been voter.
The champion of an expanded currency
when the country was experiencing the
throes of the panic of 1873, ne became the
advocate OF the Sherman bill when he found
his soft money principles were unpopular
with his party in the East. Everything
by turns and nothing long," he Is the cham
pion political thimble rigger of the age.
Governor Hendricks well described him
when he said in speech in
Ohio last fall "that he was
consistent only in being inconsistent"
Such is the man who has ruled the Republic
can party in Indiana for years, and now as
pires to be president of the United States.
He expects a good send off in that direction
from the Indiana Republican convention,
which Is soon to meet, and most probably
will get It. There is, however, large num-
Der of active Republicans az work 70 pre-
vent his Endorsement by that convention,
and while it is probable they can not hinder
1t from being done, it is very likely they
will have the power to break the force which
an unanimous recommendation would give
him. These men are urging the claims OF
General Ben. Harrison for the presidency,
and although they may not present his
name to the convention, they believe
his chances are good for the nomination
should none of the other leading candi-
dates be able to command majority
in the convention. General Harrison
is a lawyer of commanding ability, is
in the prime of life, and never held but a
single Office, and that in the line of his pro-
fession. He is of good stock, being grand
son OF president, and the great grandson
of signer of the Declaration of Independ-
ence. His personal character is above re-
proach, and his talents fit him for any posi-
ton the people may bestow upon him. The
movement in his favor has assumed such
proportions as to alarm Senator Morton and
his friends, and they are striving to arrest