The Washington herald., 1915-07-09
Jim Manu. as an Issue.

The Hon. James r. Mann has one advantage
other Republican favorite sons. He has be-
come an issue The prohibitionists in convention
assembled in Atlantic City have made him ma
tional issue. They have selected him as the tar
get for their heaviest guns and propose to keep
up steady fire him the Republican leader
of the House OF Representatives because he re-
fused to vote for the Hobson amendment for ma
tional prohibition 1t is probable that Jim Mann
never voted for any BILL resolution or amendment
proposed by Capt Hobson, and that his Chicago
constituents honor him for always taking the op-
poste side from the Don Quixote OF Congress, but
IN this instance the prohibitionists denounce Mann
as the tool of the liquor interests, and declare
that the Republican party must surely go to de-
feat with him its candidate. They the pro-
hibitionists, would prefer Mr. Bryan but not Pres
idcnt Wilson.
But what must worry other candidates is the
fact that Jim Mann gets all the publicity out of
the prohibition convention. He is the only Re-
publican considered worth mention with Oscar
Underwood the only Democrat. These two
were denounced unworthy, but no other man in
either of the old parties considered as holding
out any promise OF being better The convention
made Mann issue and stopped right there If
these prohibitonists would look over political his
tory they might discover that they had done Jim
Mann service instead of injury. Opposition
from the outside has rarely hurt candidate for
President. William Mckinley was made an issue
by those who opposed not only him but the Re-
publican party, and they kept him to the front so
conspicuously the issue opposed by the
Democrats that other Republican had a look in
at the St Louis convention in 1896. Then they
ken heir abrSe Pres
with good many thousand Democrats voting for
him in preference to William J. Bryan. President
Grant had the same kind of experience in 1872 when
his opponents outside the party made him the only
issue. James G. Blaine and Grover Cleveland were
made more conspicuous leaders of their parties
by the hatred of the opposition centerins upon
them. When the issue is made to center in any
one man it is difficult to dislocate that connection
and give others chance.
Why the prohibitionists should make Jim Mann
the issue is not clear unless some friend OF that
astute politician perhaps Hamp Moore. sicked
them on. Mann has the reputation of being
teetotaler both at home and in Washington. No
him take glass of beer or smoke
a cigarette. In the House he is known to
keep package OF chocolate in his desk and live
that temperance diet jus: as long as he can
keep the boys at work. In the city council of
Ihicago he long years ago secured the passage
of the first local option law by which the resi-
dence DISTRICTS were freed from the saloons. In
Congress he has been extremist in moral ieeis-
lation and the white slave act bears his name He
was only one of the 100 Representatives who voted
against the Hobson amendment, and there is no
apparent reason why he should be singled out by
the prohibitionsts unless it be that he offered an
amendment TO the amendment. The Mann amend
ment provided that this proposed constitutional
amendment should be submitted to the people in
stead of to the State legislatures elected on other
issues His proposition was in harmony with the
authorized plans for amending the. Constitution,
and it was also in harmony with the demand of the
prohibtionists to submit the question to the
people.
1t was Carter Harrison. the elder. who said that
his enemies made him mayor of Chicago and kept
him in that Office for eight years by making him
a political issue. Jim Mann may have been fol-
lowing the political philosophy of Carter Harrison
and provoking his enemies to make him an ISSUE
We all know that he dearly loves fight and he
is apparently the only favorite son in either party
who has drawn the IRE of the FIRST big political