The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1896-11-11
Did Mr.. Eooser Want to Elect Free Sill
verite to Congress From This District


Did Mr.. EoOser Want to Elect Free Sill
verite to Congress From This District
NICroRs can afford TO be generous.
Triumph prompts magnanimity. And
usually there is nothing more becoming
a conqueror than generosity to the van
quished. When Grant said to Lees
veterans, 'Take your horses and go
home" he added lustre to his fame.
But there are exceptions to the rule.
"They enslave their children's children
who make compromise with SIM" and
they do worse than that who, having
overcome evil with good, condone the
evil and let it again become malefic.
There are some movements so base,
some causes so depraved, that neither
victory can justify them nor defeat en-
title them to commiseratiOn.
Such a cause was that which was VAN
quished last Tuesday, when an unright-
eous effort was made 10y professed Re
publicans 10 elect in this district, with
its overwhelming Republican majority,
a representative to Congress who was
the candidate of the party of free silver,
free trade, free riot, and national dis
honor.
Our readers will all remember the
farcical Congressional Conference
which adjourned without making
regular nomination; how Mr.. KoOser,
the Somerset County candidate, filed a
certificate of nomination, claiming to
be the regular nominee by reason of his
having received the votes of his three
conferees, and how his pretentious
claims were contemptuously dismissed
by the Dauphin County Court; how
Mr. Hicks also filed certificate claim
ing TO be regularly nominated, and how
it was also dismissed by the same Court.
how Mr.. Hicks and Mr.. Thropp were
both placed on the ticket by nomina-
ton papers, and how the State and Ma
tiOnal Committees appealed to the Re-
publican voters of the district to con-
centrate their votes upon Mr.. Hicks in
order that loyal supporter Of Presi-
dent Mckinley might represent them
in Congress.
1t was to be supposed that Mr.. Koos-
er, who with three Others, was respon-
sible for placing the district in the per-
ilOus position il occupied, would gladly
rally his friends TO the support of the
candidate endorsed by both State and
National Committees, and thus in a
measure make amends for what had
gone before.
Did he do il? We trOw not. While
he, of all other Republicans in this
County, having been the County's can
didate, should have been in position
TO know which of the Republican cam
didates was the stronger, which had
the better chance of election, and to
that one should have given his most
generous support, he openly announced
that on personal grounds he could not
vote for Mr.. Hicks, and publicly ex-
pressed his belief that Mr.. Thropp was
much the stronger candidate of the
two. If ignorance Of the existing sit
uation led Mr.. Kooser to make the lat
ter announcement, it was Inaccessible;
if duplicity, it was damnable.
We of course do not know how Mr.
KoOser voted on the question, but we
do know that his nearest personal
friends, the men who had supported
him most zealously when a candidate
for the Congressional nomination, were
the ones who worked and voted for Mr.
Thropp and sent misleading statements
as to the comparative strength of the
two Republican candidates into every
voting precinct in the County, and into
the other Counties of the District. Mr.
koOser and his friends certainly knew
that in attempting to divide the vote
between Hicks and Thropp they We're
assisting in the election of McNamara.
If their own judgment did not tell
them that Hicks was immeasurably the
stronger man, those high in the party
councils did. and when they rejected
this judgment they sinned against
light and knowledge.
1t matters but little for whom Mr..
KoOser and his immediate personal
friends voted, but it is due the Repub-
licans of the County, for their future
guidance, that they should know how
men whom they have frequently hon
ored with their sufi'rages discharged
their trust in the crucial test to which
they were subjected on last election day.
1t was with them question of men,
Hicks or Mcnamara, person above
party, self above patriotism and coun-
try.
We have none but the kindliest per-
sonal feelings for Mr.. Kooser, and what
we have said is not prompted by any
other motive, but we deem it duty as
a Republican journal to make known
to the Republican voters of the County
how men who aspire to their leader
ship discharge their trust when called
upon to make the test between party
and self. Hicks majority over Thropp
in the District was 1850, yet Ar.
Kooser said that Thropp was the
stronger man.
HIgk y TRUMpH