The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1920-09-03
HARDING'S CAMPAIGN TRADES.

What does Mr.. Harding mean by
his copy-book platitudes about "the
old standards of honestly" With all
his arrant inconsistencies, Lodge,
leader of the Senate, is far superior
in both public and private morals to
his predecessor, Matt Quay. What
particular qualifications has the SEN
atorial cabal to which Mr.. Harding
has weakly turned over the peroga-
tives of the presidential office, should
he chance to be elected, to guide the
rest Of us into the superb moralities
of old?
Like old demagogues and reaction
aries Mr.. Harding loves a radical
dead but despises him alive. His
blubbering references in his talk to
the editors of Washington and Roose-
welt are the shallowest cant and hy-
procrisy. Had he lived in the days of
Washington and Adams and jefferson
he would have joined in the hue and
cry raised against their "radicalism."
Proof of this is found in his fawning
references last Friday to Roosevelt.
Back in 1912 when he was personally
editing his newspaper at Marion he
filled his columns with bitter abuse
against the lion who is now dead. At
that time Roosevelt was committing
the sin of political sins, i. e., he had
caused to be Irregular" and had be-
come, for few fleeting years, at
least, a political independent.
Equally as criminal as being indie
pendent in politics, in the estimation
of Candidate Harding, is running an
independent newspaper. Liste to
his tale of woe: "The old-timer paper
going back to the last half of the
last half century-(That is really a
great stride forward for Mr.. Hard
ing, for his private opinion is that the
newspapers were run even better
back in the days when they burned
witches and stoned heretics to death)
was usually real journal Of opinion.
1t reflected the convictions as well as
the opinions of the owner and editor,
and it was real molder of public
opinion. The transition from the
party organ in these later days to the
so-called Independent newspaper
has not been an unmiXed blessing
etc, to the end of atrade which for
unoriginality and vapid mummery
marks, in our opinion, the lowest
depths to which presidential oratory
has yet descended in American his
tory. The common experience of
newspaper readers in every commun-
ity in this broad land gives the direct
lie to every assertion Mr.. Harding
made about the superiority of journ-
alism in the days in which Mr.. Hard
ing is apparently still living com
pared with modern journalism. In
those old days. so sacred to him,
newspaper editors generally filled
their editorial columns with two things
one of which was personal abuse of
each other in which they descended
into the vilest depths of personality,
and the other was printing stuff of
partisan character so stupid and
grossly misleading that even partisan
readers would no longer stand for it
which in brief is the one outstand-
ing reason for the moribund condi-
ton today Of the party organ and the
wonderful growth and healthy activ-
ity of the independent newspaper"
which Candidate Harding sneers at
and which Editor Harding secretly
Reconsideration CO., Tribune and
Times-Age.
Kansas City-Steam iitnayS plan-