Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1903-03-02
THE ISSUE NOW DEFINED.

TAR SNAPPED 1tSeiI that III Is now eNl0en
that there will be no contest over nom
nations in the next republican stat
offices of superintendent of public in
struction and railroad commissioner
The disgruntled editorial minority
| which is in the habit of calling Cover
| nor Cum1nins and the Overwhelming
/ majority of republican delegates in two
state conventions Trojan Horse Demo.
crafts" has conceded that the governor
and the lieutenant governor will be re-
nominated without opposition. The only
issue before the convention will be the
wording of the tariff plank of the plat.
form.
| The Times has always
believed that the principal agitators
among the stand pat" press were actu-
ated in their criticism of the platform
of the majority solely by their personal
antagonism to Mr.. Cummins and the
friends of Mr.. Cummlns, who have
! gained control of the republican party.
With one single exception the daily pa
pers that are fighting so valiantly for
national republicanism as opposed to
iowa republicanism are the newspapers
that fought Cummins in the Cedar Rap
ids convention campaign with a bitter
ness never before exhibited in the re-
publican press. Their defeat at Cedar
Rapids was humiliating. but they con-
soled themselves with the fact that the
platform mad been involved in the Cum
minis fight and during all of the election
campaign of that fall their support of
the party was aimed over the head of
the nominee at the platform. The shell
ter plank. which they have since at
tempted to make notorious, was the
principal plank in that platform and
was endorsed by them.
1t was not until "a few months prior
TO the next state convention that any
one discovered anything wrong with the
platform. About that time one j. w.
Blythe of Burlington was button-h oling
members of the legislature in the in
terests of a slight personal ambition of
his TO go to the United States senate
One Lafayette Young, who had masoue-
ing the summers campaign, and who.
as chairman of the Polk county Cum
Minis delegation with sixty-tive other
delegates behind him so that he couldn't
get away, had been kept in line until
certain railroad bills in the legislature
needed editorial support, was complain
ing TO his friends that Mr. Cummins
was not consulting him with the free
dom that his friendship demanded. One
Cummins was so foolish as to have
made a tariff speech at Minneapolis
supporting the republican platform of
Iowa upon which he had been elected.
These We're all contemporaneous events.
Cumn1ins' speech was taken as a matter
of course until nearly ten days after
ward, when suddenly upon the still at
mosphere of political quiet there was
heard mighty chorus of complaint.
Upon the same day. in almost the same
language, the Burlington Hawkeye, Ce-
dar Rapids Republican, Des Moines
Capital, vinton Eagle and Iowa City
Republican cried out terrifying
alarm that the Cummins speech was
Dangerous democratic doctrine"
Such papers as the Sioux City Jour
nal, Council Bluffs Nonpareil, Spirit
Lake Beacon, Des Moines Register and
Leader and the Times Republican ex-
planned that the governor was merely
defending the tariff plank of the repub-
lican platform. Disconnected for only
moment, the chorus saw that consist
plank. The issue was brought before a
second republican state convention and,
amid great roar of applause. the iden-
teal words of the Cedar Rapids plank
We're again endorsed and
adopted. kind-hearted old Uncle
George then advised Fire Alarm
LATE to be calm but he couldn't be-
Every congressman who had fought
Cummins found fault with the platform,
and the chorus of disgruntled editors
began a relentless war upon the ma
jority expression of their party. Cum
Minis was forced to defend his party's
platform from the misrepresentation 1t
has received at home and at Washing
ton Walter Wellman dubbed the plat
form the Iowa Idea" Henderson got
scared in the Third congressional dis
trict and retired from the political
arena in a panic charging what he be-
lieved would be public calamity upon
the Iowa Idea" The republicans of
several other states adopted the same
idea and tariff discussion arose.
Leaders of the republican majority
such as editors Funk, Perkins and Rob-
erts have counseled a modification of
the language of the tariff plank in the
next platform in the interests of har-
mony. They did not expect the major
ity to abandon the principle of wise
and cautious tariff revision for the
narrow, unreasonable stand pat policy
of the minority, but they We're willing |