The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-08-12
rHE nEMooRAr1o STATE CONVENTION.

was IN session IN this city yesterday, was a
creditable body of men, compared with the
average Of the kind, and transacted the bust
ness before it in decent and orderly manner
That it should do so is not to be wondered at
for the reason that the business was all fixed
before the convention met, and the work OF
yesterday was merely the formal Endorsement
of what had been arranged by the few who
took it upon themselves to say who should be
the nominees and what should be the plat
form. AS whole, the convention wasa great
improvement in many respects over those
that have preceded it.
The selection of Mr.. Nelson for the position
of Lieutenant-governor was evidently an
afterthought, and was filed according to geo
graphical locality, and to fit the Stare already
prepared. Up to 1872 he was Republican,
and that year he went off on the Greeley tan
gent, and naturally found himself in the
Democratic party, where he has since re-
manned, being held to his allegiance by
rewards in the shape Of county Offices To
pick up comparatively obscure man like him
for the important Office for which he is named
was clearly makeshift at the last moment
/ As to the other nominees, there are few if
any of them who are prominent before the
people, and all, or nearly all of them, have
been chosen for the amount of work there is
supposed to be in them. The selection of Mr.
Byrne, of Evansville and Mr.. Munson, of
Fort Wayne, was for the reason that they
were recognized to be what is popularity
known as 'hustlers" in their way. They are
not public speakers, as indeed are none of the
others on the ticket, with the exception, pos
sibly, of Miers and McMullen, but they are
energetic men, and will make lively canvass
so that their weakness on the stump will be
fully compensated for by their abilities in
other directions, and on these they expect to
'tget there"
1t was q mistake to set aside Mr.. Holcombe
the present efficient Superintendent of Public
instruction, who has proved himself to be an
active and energetic official, and has done
much to advance the school interests of the
State, and has taken high and honorable
stand among the educationists of the country
He was set aside for Mr.. Sweeney in the in
terests of the slate, and in obedience to the
demands of locality. Mr.. Sweeney lisa Catholic
Irishman of Dubois county, and may be very
Al oil HIT ha 90
known as an educator.
The ticket as a whole, while not bad one,
is not remarkable in the elements that gen.
orally make strong combination; but, as has
been remarked of the gentlemen from Fort
Wayne and Evansville. the nominees are
workers, and will make lively canvass. It
will not do therefore, to think that it will be
an easy thing to beat the ticket named yester-
day.
sistencies. The opening paragraph perfunctor
lily indorses the administration Of President
Cleveland, as was to be expected. The con-
vention would not have thought of doing any
thing else. The second paragraph is fulsome
toward the memory Of the Hon. Themes A.
Hendricks, the one man in Indiana who held
the unbroken and unfaltering allegiance Of
his entire party. There was not Democrat
present in Tomlinson Hall yesterday, and there
is not one in the entire State of Indiana but
knows that Thomas A. Hendricks represented
the sentiment of his party in his exposition of
what he believed to be the policy that should
be pursued by the party after it came into
power, and it is known that he was in direct
opposition to the position taken by the Presi-
dent. What the one believed the other did
not believe. The policy of the President
since carried out out by him to more or less
degree, was not the policy that would have
been followed by Mr. Hendricks. To at
tempt to compliment both these gentlemen
was simply to stultify the convention, and to
confess that there was not enough courage in
it to say exactly what was meant.
The third article of the platform is as
plainly in favor of free trade as could we'll be
drawn, yet on the stage from which it was
read the leading Democrat, holding the high
est position that any one of that party does
from this State, Senator Voorhees,, sat and
heard this resolution read and adopted with
out word of remonstrance-indeed, he was a
member of the committee that reported if
though he well knew, as everybody knew
that it was in direct antagonism with his
position on this important question. He
knew that it was exactly the opposite of
what he had proclaimed in his speech delivered
on the occasion of the opening of the exposi-
ton at Atlanta, when he urged that the West