Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1908-05-14
where speech is free and where printing


So true is this that it will be impossible
for the student of our industrial life to
separate his name from the progress
which the nation has made. Whenever
you hear men who have never spent a
week in bona fide study of the tariff
system seeking to descredit men like
Senator Allison who have been dealing
with the subject all their lives, you can
easily understand the disgust which
Noah is said to have expressed for a
newcomer within the Gates of Pearl-a
laxative survivor of the Johnstown
flood, who insisted upon occupying the
time by relating his own experience with
high water.
Deny Any Division.
"But it is said that there is a great
crisis upon us which can only be met by
organizing the progressive forces around
the leader VINO has suffered so much in
the cause of the people. deny that
there is any such division in Iowa. 1t is
threadbare invention of political pro.
moters, intended for use in capturing
nominations; dangerous invention, well
adapted to destroy the value of nomina-
lions. There are a good many ways of
proving the truth of what I say, but
probably the shortest cut is to call to
the witness stand the man who knows
all about the invention, who made it,
patented it, and has had it i'm continual
use for nearly ten years Il don't like to
hear a man talk of progressive Repub-
leans, said the governor of Iowa on
September IA, 1906, before vast multi
tude at Harris Grove, in Webster county,
in speech opening his campaign for the
office which he now holds. Il don't like
to hear man talk of progressive Re-
pubhcans and stand patters. There is no
such lining, because every Republican is
progressive, and the history of the party
is the history of progression. | am an
old-fashioned Republican, continued the
governor, AN Abraham Lincoln Grant
Mckinley Republican, without any en-
belllshments whatever | was born a
Republican, and l know that the Re-
publican party is now and always has
been progressive party, and l know
that there are no laggards in our ranks.
We are holding up the old flag of the
Union, just as our fathers did years
ago, and | can't be tempted to divide
this old party into any such factions and
fanciful names as these We are all
striving for the same thing, the same
ends
Il take a short course to characterize
this campaign-I denounce it a humbug,
No Crisis Now.
Whatever crisis there is in Iowa now
was here summer before last, and unless
we are content to feed the people of
Iowa on steady diet of humbug and
DISSEMINATION, we ought to see to it that
this unseemly disparagement of one an.
other, so profitable in securing nomina.
lions and so embarrassing on election
days, is effectually done away. Unless
such tactics as these come to an end.
the appeal of editors for the united sup
port OF our nominations will be in vain.
You cannot defame the character of one
half the membership of your party, rep
resenting whole communities, as under
the corrupt influence of corporations,
without inviting a retaliation as de-
served as it is inevitable. There has
been no crisis in our national life in
which the representatives of Iowa, fol-
lowing the counsel and leadership of
William b. Allison, have not borne a
manly and honorable part. There are
scores OF men in Iowa who have heard
from the lips of President Roosevelt his
hearty and sincere tribute to the fidelity
with which every man from Iowa has
stood by him since the day poor McKin-
ley laid down the presidency with his
life. If the Iowa delegation in Congress
stood in need of any words of commenda-
ton from me, | could do no better than
to repeat the words of Governor Cum
minis, standing on this very platform,
hardly more than year ago, when he
said: 1T is the proud distinction of our
commonwealth that in the session of
Congress just closed the delegation from
our state stood nearer to this great
leader than the delegation from any
other state in the union. And without
invidious comparison desire to embrace
this opportunity to lay this tribute of
my praise at the feet of our delegation
in Congress-
yet almost within year the flowers
of this tribute are faded Some of the
congressman are driven in disgust into
retirement; others brought into line by
threats OF defeat; others solicited to be
neutral, while our greatest leader, the
closest adviser of the president, not
even excepting his cabinet; the man
OF whom MIR. Roosevelt, when the rate
bill was up, said in letter intended for
the Congressional Record: L earnestly
suggested to all to whom l spoke that
they should communicate with YOU.
whose purposes and mine were Identical
this man is made to realize that
neither age, nor service, nor fame, nor
nf
the solemn covenants of his adversaries
Is able to protect his gray hairs.
There was time in Iowa when men
were able to run for Office on the public
recognition OF their talents, their supe-
rior ability, their party activity-in
word, on their merits. All of that seems
to have gone, and now candidates are
announced for practically every Office on
the ground that they are somebody's
man, and it has only become necessary
to popularize the pretentions of few
leaders in order to fill the state with a
swarm of announcements, bearing a sig
nificant witness to the fact that the pay
roll and the cause of progress work to-
gether. At this point the great crisis
arrives in the life of the nation. And so
we have been treated for years with the
same spectacle which we witness now,
bogus division in the Republican ranks
of Iowa, kept alive for nomination pur-
poses only.
"My fellow citizens, this is beautiful
spring to put a final quietus on this
time honored fraud.
Ridicule of Dolliver.
mot long ago a newspaper devoted to
the governors interest in Fayette county
sought to bring me into ridicule and re-
proach me because / allowed myself to
act as crutch to support the tottering
footsteps of my colleague "a played-out
politician if remember the language of
the editor correctly. ] did not particu-