Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1910-06-24

RY MEAD PUBLISHING co
Official Paper OF City and County
Shall iowa Ratify the Reputation
of Its Senator'S?
The issue which overshadowed all
others in the republican primary of
the7th, was this, ''Shall Iowa indorse
its senators by nominating Garst for
governor, or, shall it repudiate them
by nominating Carroll?"
The issue was raised in every politi-
cal division of the state. 1t was dis
cussed in the school houses and grocery
stores, on the farm and in the factory,
in the home and in the Office. 1t was
debated on the stump and in the press,
until every republican voter understood
that it was for him to say with his vote
whether he was for or against repudi-
alton of the course hostile to the Taft
administration pursued by Senators
Dolliver and Cummins..
A snap judgment was impossible.
Long before the primary the issues
were made up, and they remained un-
changed. The campaign in behalf of
Garst rested upon an indictment of the
republican party as The party of the
interests, and unworthy as now con-
trolled, of trust by the people, needing
purging of the evils that make it false
to the ideals Of its founders, and the
tool of the plunderbund. 1t was urged
that the nomination Garst construct
lively would be service of notice of
Iowa's dissatisfaction with Cannon and
Aldrich and Ballinger and the other
armored champions of privilege; of
Iowa's dissatisfaction with the Payne
Aldrich tariff law and its desire for its
amendment in the interests Of consum-
ers. All that Cummins had said in his
philipp cs against the rate bill, all that
Dolliver had said in his mastery ar
raignment of the tariff law, was be-
fore the republican voters of Iowa for
their consideration. The campaign
was lacking in nothing to make it COM
prehensive; there was no clouding Of
the issues. The question was clear cut
and unmistakable, and admitted but
one answer-negative or Affirmative
''Shall Iowa indorse its senators by
nominating Garst for governor"
The answer of the primary is in the
negative, "no!'' Iowa repudiates its
senators; Iowa stands by Taft.
1t is great pity that this is so-a
pity all the greater because Iowa's SEN
ators have battled for the right as the
light was given them to see it.
And yet, for all they did for the COM
mon man, for all they did to lift off the
backs OF consumers oppressed by the
burden of tariff loot, for all they did to
destroy the power Of railroads to take
at will the property of shippers, for all
they did in in the service of the COM
mon man,-they are repudiated by their
own party. Strangely expressed in
deed is the proverbial ingratitude of
republics. Proof anew is given in their
humiliation that men die at the hands
Of those they would save.
If Tuesdays primary marked the end
of war, then the war was lost by the
progressive cause If it was merely an
engagement in war, only a battle
was lost. And the result OF that bat
tie aligns Iowa, temporarily at least,
on the side of Taft, and Cannon, and
Aldrich and the interests that prey.
The republican party of Iowa has in
truth repudiated Cummins and Dolliver
and the progressive policies..for which
they stand, but has the citizenship OF
Iowa repudiated them? For between
the membership of the republican party
and the citizenship of Iowa, there is
broad difference, and marked distinct
ion. Until the citizenship of the state
ratifes the action of the republican
primary in nominating Carroll, it can
not be said that the citizenship of the
state is against the progressive cause,
and the leaders of that cause in Iowa.
The election of Carroll will ratify
the Reputation Of the senators. 1t
will crown their humiliation. Will the
progressives of Iowa renounce their de-
votion to principle, and to their sena-
tors by voting for Carroll? If Garst
had been the nominee, the standpatters
would not have supported him, as ev-
cry man in Iowa of average political
intelligence we'll knows. Twenty thous-
and of them, it was openly boasted,
voted for the democratic candidate for
governor four years ago, not because
he stood for the things they stood for,
but because they "loved Caesar less.
They showed no regard for the binding
nature of partisan ties. They were
national republicans. They were
the insurrectionists then.
A single means is afforded the citi-
zenship of Iowa-democrats and pro-
gressive republicans and Independent
citizenship-to save the face of Cum
minis and Dolliver, to spare them con-
firmation of the primary reputation,
and that means is to defeat Carroll for
reelection. Let the issue be made now,