Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1920-09-20
VOTERS ASkED
TORA|SE MONEY
County Chairman Claude V.
Campbell Issues an
Open Letter to
Voters.
1T TAKES MONEY
Work of Committees Cannot
Be Done Without
Funds.

county central Republican committee
has just issued the following appeal t.
the voters of this county:
Freeman-Journal: Considerable valu
able time, effort, and newspaper space
have been wasted Of late in certain
interesting, but fanciful. discussions Of
the question Of Republican party cam
paign funds. l would like to squandel
bit more of the same three commodi
ties in a brief discussion of that same
interesting topic.
Political campaigns are q rather es
sential diversion in government Of
the people, like our government. The
most Of us most of the time are more
or less busy trying to make Ounr living
When election times roll around, most
of us find out that we know rather less
about political matters than we would
like to know, to enable us to cast in
telligent votes when we 80 to the polls
on Nov. ?. The voters really are en-
titled to know what the political par
ties are standing for. what their pur'
poses and principles may be, what sort
of folks the candidates for Office are
They have right to demand that the
facts and figures be laid before them
that real campaigns of education in
political affairs be carried on, so tina,
each voter may hear, read, study and
reflect, and make an intelligent choice
Publicity Costs Money.
That is what the political parties are
trying to do. That is what they are
raising campaign funds for; not tc
buy" votes, but to send out speakers
to discuss the live political issues OF
the day; to. get out campaign litera
ture discussing the principles and the
platforms and the purposes Of the par.
ties. that the voters may read and un.
derstand and vote intelligently. To
do all this costs money. and consider.
able Of it. The Republican national
committee has estimated that 1t will
cost about three million dollars to con-
duct the Republican national and state
campaigns, and the committee is trying
to raise that much money. They
haven't raised it all yet.
There are two ways to get the
money One is the old way, the method
the Republican and Democratic par
ties both have always employed in the
past, the method the Democratic party
is employing tOday-to accept big con.
tributions from rich men. That Is the
easy way to get the necessary money,
but it creates suspicion on the part of
the people that the big interests who
make big contributions do it in order
that they may have undue influence in
governmental affairs after the party
gets into power.
Hays Method.
The Othere way is the new way, the
method that our Republican national
chairman. Will II. Hays, is trying out
IN this campaign for the first time. to
raise the money by small contributions
from the rank and file of the members
of the Republican party in every cOun.
ty in every state. It's the finest and
cleanest policy ever put into effect by
any political party. And it is making
our Democratic friends sit up and take
notice.
Our Democratic adversaries are
realizing already that they must do
one of two things, either make the Re-
publican plan Of raising the money by
popular subscription total failure, or
else put the same reform into effect
in their own party. They probably
realize how difficult 1t would be to try
to raise money by popular subscription
to secure a continuation Of the kind
Of administration we have labored un-
der for the past seven years. So they
-
are working desperately on the other
tack--trying to make failure Of VIII
H. Hays splendid plan Of raising the
campaign funds by popular subscrip-
lions. Bro. Cox is raising horrible
furOre about an alleged fifteen million
dollar Republican corruption fund. He
has raised it to thirty millions now and
will probably dream another million
or two every night from now until
Nov. .. He would like mighty well
to make Republican voters disguised
about political campaign funds so that
they would refuse to contribute, and
thus make complete failure of the
Republican campaign.
The big question is will Bro. Cox
succeed? Will individual Republican
voters contribute the small amounts
asked to raise the money required to
carry on the campaign, or will they re-
fuse TO give and, by so refusing. conf
pei the Republican party to go back to
the old plan Of accepting big contribu-
lions from rich corporations and