The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1900-07-17
Campaign Already Characterized by an
Intensity of Personal Bitter
ness Hitherto Unknown.
CONVENTION RESULT IN DOUBT
OPPOSITION TO BECKHAM is VERY
STRONG In KENTUCKY.
Kentucky Republicans Will Nominate
Yerkes for GOvernor-Republic
an Clubs Convention.
pecial to the indianapolis Journal.

Special to the Indianap polls Journal.
LEXINGTON, KY, July 16.-To the su
perficial view Kentucky would seem a
walkover for Bryan in November McKin-
ley. with the aid of 5000 gold Democrats,
got only twelve out of thirteen presiden-
tial electors in 1896 by meager few hun
dreds in a total of $1,000, the largest vote
ever cast in the State. A year later the
Democrats elected a minor state officer by
nearly $4,000 majority, and last year the
Democrats, Handicapped by a notorious
character at the head of the ticket. and in
the face of that same gold faction, rein
forced by fresh recruits styling themselves
anti-Goebel Democrats, only lost the State
by 2,100 to 2,400 in total vote of 100000.
Bryan leaders fully believe they have
morphined many of the gold boilers of 1896
into a sense of security and lured them
back to camp by the pretended back
grounding of silver and by the specious
plea that Bryan cant do any harm to the
money standard If elected They have
convinced themselves that the keen edge
of the gold factional opposition to the
regular organization has been dulled and
that they will win back at least COM
Portable percentage of the bolters of 1886
enough to insure success. They feel that
in the cold-blooded matter of votes the or
ganization has been the gamer instead of
the loser a result of the convulsions
leading up and incident to the assassina-
tion of Goebel, list of happenings which
include the indictment of prominent Re-
publicans for the murder. the flight of Gov.
Taylor-the entire chain and group of col
lateral incidents connected with the trag-
edy to their notion contributing to the ce-
mentation of Democratic sentiment and to
the loss of opposition spirit and self-asser-
ton. That is likewise the view as il i'm
presses the spectator in the grand stand,
who looks at the performance at long
range and bases judgment on what he
knows of the record and sees in the public
prints.
Closer inspection reveals local conditions
which force a change of position. Goebel
is dead, but Goebelism still lives, and in a
form that is offensive not only to Repub-
licans but to tens of thousands of the
flower of Kentucky Democracy. Goebe-
ism is represented by the power behind the
Goebel election law, which lodges supreme
control in state board of three organiza-
tion Democrats, to throw out or to declare
elected such candidates as they may see
fit, regardless of the ballots cast. The
spirit Of the newborn tyranny which
found expression in a long list of extraor-
dinary performances at Frankfort last win
ter and spring is poisoning the judiciary,
and has thoroughly alarmed honest and
well-meaning men without regard to party
Affiliations.
AGAINST GOEBELISM.
| A keen sense of personal danger is be-
hind the war against Goebelism. Over in
Georgetown, in the State. a trial is in
progress. Men indicted for political muir
der are on trial for their lives. Now, no.
body wants the assassins of Goebel to go
unpublished, but there is about those
Georgetown proceedings a display of brute
force and undisguised malignty that
startles thinking people and fastens upon
them a species of terror. 1t is demon
stration of the ruthless length to which the
| machinery of the law. directed by bitter
ly partisan judge, can go for the punish
ment of political offenses committed or al
legged to have been committed by political
opponents. The Georgetown Judge and the
people who are with him in the storm
center at this juncture may not and prob
ably do not realize it. but they are on trial
before q jury composed of the people of
Kentucky quite tragically the poor
wretches now i'm their clutches are on trial
before a jury of Scott county farmers.
The battle against the state organization
in Kentucky has enlisted the active CO.
operation of a great number of men who
have been for many years in the forefront
of political action-Democratic leaders of
national as we'll as state prominence. Rank
and radical free silverites, who carried the
banner for Bryan aloft in 1896 and gave of
their time and money for him have joined
with the gold boilers in common cause
against Goebelism. They have forgotten
their past differences over the standards
and joined hands for the publication of the
State.
In numbers and influence the Democratic
| bolt of 1900 threatens TO be decidedly more
formidable than that of 1896 i'm Kentucky
Of the element composing the sound-money
| bolt four years ago IS per cent. will swing
clear over into the Republican camp. This
| rs per cent. is as irreconcilably opposed to
Bryanism now as then. How many of the
free-silver recruits voting against the
Goebelite state ticket will go TO the limit
and swallow Mckinley is an open ques-
ton. From pledges voluntarily made by
hundreds OF them to Republican leaders IL
would appear that the sweep that way
is very strong. Some OF the free-silver
anti-Goebelites would like 10 vote for
Bryan, but they cannot disassociate the
state from the national machine-cannot
vote for the national ticket without giving
color OF support to men against whom they
are arrayed with intense bitterness. II
am at heart for Bryan. said stalwart
free-silvsr Democrat Blue Grass boltsr.