The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1916-08-18
PRECINCT & COUNTY POLITICS
A Party with an Uncertain Base. Remedy Sug-
gested Can be Applied at the Primaries. His
tory of How the Republican Party Went
Wrong--How it Partly Cleaned up
CLEANING JOB NEEDS FINISHING NOW

The people of Idaho and Of Bing.
ham county in particular need more
patriotism mixed with their politics
and less of the desire for immediate
personal gain or business advantage.
They need more of the true appre-
citation of the purposes of political
parties and less of the idea that the
people exist for the party's benefit
and glory. They need to get more OF
the idea that government is main
tanned to protect the weak and give
to everybody equal rights rather than
that political positions are created
to enable the winners in elections to
make the others bow down and sub
NIT to their wishes.
When political parties or candi-
dates advocate different ideas as to
what should be done, somebody gets
more votes than the other because
more people think his ideas or his
party ideas are nearer perfect than
the others, but this does not mean
that the winners shall crush out the
other fellows and go to extremes in
administering the laws. There are
too many public men who get to
thinking that the whole contention
OF a campaign is their own personal
affair, and they reason that il they
could only destroy their opponents
or put them in prison or besmirch
their characters so that it would de-
stroy them politically it would give
a clear field to attain great personal
success. Following this crude idea
they have used the courts in their
efforts to pull men down; have got
ten their friends on juries and grand
juries to help condemn their intend
ed victims, have run in a lot of their
followers and helpers as witnesses
to give false or prejudiced testimony
and to draw witness fees and mileage
for sitting around the courts watch
ing and enjoying the foul fight. They
have kept control of as may news
papers as they could for the purpose
OF misinforming the people as to
what actually happens, and in cam
paign times these corrupt press or
cans are used to abuse honorable
men and to laud the ~scoundrels. They
use cunning means to give confiden-
tial inside information to leaders OF
certain classes of people such as are
naturally opposed to them and by
this means get their support and get
them to oppose the very men who
are fighting the scoundrels. One of
their favorite games is to build up
some of their own fiction in the
minds of certain ministers, who are
credulous to a fault, and get them
in a humor to do what little they can
against the men whom the crooks
are afraid of. The same plan is fol-
lowed in getting influential persons in
the W. c. T. u, the women's clubs
and various little organizations, in
spired with their so-called inside in
formation, purely fictitious, and get
them filled with the idea that now
is their chance to go about doing
something for Christ. Their favorite
method is to circulate scandal con
corning the men they want to beat,
and human nature is so constituted
that it lends itself industriously to
repeating scandal and always con-
cealing the source from which it
came. This carries out perfectly the
wishes of those who start it. and if
any attempt is made to run it down
and find the source, every one who
has stopped to repeat the stuff de
MES remembering who told him or
her. 1t is one of the circumstances
where passingly good people will de-
%liberately lie, for they remember that
1t was told to them in an undertone