The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1916-03-17
referred to the people of Wayne county as, we
are alphabetically speaking damphools.


to the political pie counter via the senatorial
route.
Watson started out as legitimately as is pos
sible for him in the three-cornered fight at the
state primary, Robinson and New being the other
candidates. New beat Watson fairly and square
y in the primary by a plurality of 1000 votes.
The state law, however declares the winner of
primary must have majority. Consequently
New as the plurality candidate of the party at
the primary must be confirmed as the Republican
nominee for senator at the state convention.
Rendered desperate by this latest manifesto
tion of his dwindling political fortunes, Watson
trumpng up charges of fraud on the part of
News supporters in the twelfth district and in
Marion county, announced that for that reason
and inasmuch as so many people had voted for
him in the primary he felt it incumbent upon
himself to carry the fight to the convention and
there seek to defeat Harry New.
Yet News primary vote of $4,000 added to
Robinson's vote of $4,000 gives total of 100000
| voters who do not want Jim Watson to be the Re-
publican party's nominee for senator. This is very
conclusive evidence, too, for it is $4,000 votes
more than the $1,000 who were deluded into
thinking that Watson would be tower of
strength to their party this fall.
Then Senator Shively died and there is the re-
sulting vacancy thus created to be filled well
as the regular contest between Harry New and
Senator Kern.
Avidly, Watson, before the dead senator's
body cold, announced by his friends
candidate for the new nomination the Republi-
cans must now make. Furthermore, these friends
are urging Watson's nomination because, they
hat
want him. After his showing up as such a poor
loser by planning to defeat in the convention the
man who fairly beat him in the primary it is
extremely doubtful if even a majority of those
$1,000 are equally unsportsmanlike and
ashamed as now to want Watson the nominee of
their party for senator.
At any rate there were, as is seen above in
the total vote for New and Robinson, 10000
voters who do not want Jim Watson as the candi-
date of their party for the senatorship rendered
vacant by the death of Senator Shively.
Meantime the names of two other Republi-
cans are gaining increasing mention as contest
ants for this nomination for senator. They are
Will Hays, the present state chairman of the
party and Judge Quincy Meyers, one of the receat
unsuccessful candidates for governor. Both are
a type of clean Republicans who would grace the
office to which they aspire.
Watsons final political doom is upon him.
His strength has steadily declined these past ten
years and the fault is all his own. He has not
kept faith with the humble people who entrusted
political power into his keeping. Instead of seek
ing to follow their will he has persistently sought
to impose his own will upon them. No better
illustration of this fundamental weakness Of
Watson's could be asked for than his plan to
wrest the senatorial nomination, fairly won in
the primary, from Harry New in the convention.
Such untrustworthiness merits and finally
meets it's just reward. Watson will find this is
true when the Republican state convention short
ly meets and does not nominate him for either
senatorship nor for any office. He will find that
his power has dwindled to the vanishing point.
Like the little islands of snow on the north slope
or the last Pickering flame from the puddle of
taow that a candle, Watson's availability
for even the nomination for justice of the peace
in Rush county, much less for senator from
Indiana, will melt away or puff out in the near
ing convention.
Dwindling Jim is all in.