The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1916-04-11
G. 0. P. WAR PARTY
Murphy Scores Republicans in
Opening Speech Today.
Acceptance of Root Speech
Makes Issue Clear Cut.
DEMOCRATS START MEETING
State Chairman Reviews His
tory of the Administration.
s'Three RS" May Bring a Demo-
cratic Victory Again.
DEMOCRATS START MEETING

Hutchinson, Kan, April lin an
address bristling with charges against
the Republican party and containing
a patriotic review of legislation enact
ed under the Democratic regime, E.
E. Murphy of Leavenworth, chairman
of the Democratic state central COM
mittee, called the state convention to
order here today. Chairman Murphy'S
address was considered the keynote Of
Democratic thought in Kansas.
THE Democratic party has been
tried under the most unfavorable cir
cumstances, and has made good in
both state and nation" said Mr.. Muir
ply. Woodrow Wilson will go down
in history one of the greatest presi-
dents. During his administration
more constructive legislation has been
passed than has been enacted in the
law in the last thirty years."
Mr.. Murphy pointed out that the
Democratic party had fulfilled its
pledge and revised the tariff down
ward; that it gave the country a cur
rency law for the first time in its
history that is just, sound and scien-
tific," and that it passed an income tax
law that has distributed the burden
of taxation
The speaker also reviewed the pas
sage of tho law calling for the direct
vote for United States senator's: the
passing of twenty-four bills in the in
and the appropriation of more than 20
millions of dollars for the extension of
agriculture.
War Versus Diplomacy.
THE Republicans in accepting Mr.
Roots speech at the New York con-
vention as their attitude, have made
the issue in the next campaign, and
must go before the country as war
party declaring that our differences
with Mexico and Germany can only be
settled through an appeal to arms"
Mr.. Murphy continued. 1T is clear cut,
let the Democrats accept 1t, and go be-
fore the American people on that
grave issue. On the one side the di-
plomatic policies that President Will
son has followed, or the certainty of
war with Germany and Mexico to set
tie our disputes. L believe the Ameri
can people want peace. President
WILSON'S proposition is to do all in his
power to establish a stable government
in Mexico that will be recognized by
the nations and be able to control af
fairs in that country in the interest Of
the people and not the millionaires.
Most of the criticism against Presi-
dent Wilson is inspired by men who
have profited by the tyranny and cor
ruption that has reigned there. We
can point to no stain on our honor be-
cause Lincoln, Johnson and Grant
permitted Mexico to work out her own
salvation. Today we find Wall street,
Big Business, the Republican party
and Theodore Roosevelt united against
the president in a battle cry Any
thing to beat Wilson,
THE only blot on the national hon
or of this country within the lifetime
of this generation, was put there by
Roosevelt when he took Panama and
by so doing reduced a sacred treaty
to a. scrap of paper 1t is the most
disgraceful chapter in the diplomatic
history of this country.
America First Issue
"a few years ago the three Rs,
Rum RomaniSm and Rebellion, de-
feated the Republican party Will his
tory repeat itself again in 1915 and
the three RS, Root, Roosevelt and Re-
bellion, again lead the Republican
party to defeat?
'Lincolns warning that his country
could not survive half slave and half
free, is applicable today. This coun-
try cannot survive half American and
half foreign. and the issue of Amer
lea First must be met in this cam
paign. The loftiest ideals of American
citizenship at this time cannot be de-
scribed better than in the presidents
words when he said: Not the talk
alive man, not the partisan man, not
the man who remembers first that he
was Democrat or Republican, but
the man who remembers first that the
whole destiny of modern affairs CEN
tiers on his being an American first of
ALL