The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1920-09-24
IHURLS BOMBSHELL INTO HAIR
DING CAMP

tss-ss DAAG SCAMF sf -
In line with the New York Evening
Post and other independent newspa-
pers of the country. the Coshocton
'(Ohio) Tribune and Times-Age has
thrown a bombshelI into the Harding
camp by bitterly denouncing the can
didate and his methods.
The opening paragraph OF the de-
lnunciation reads: What unkind fate
was it that compelled Candidate Har-
ding to run his mortal course on this
mundane sphere in an age so filed
with degeneracy at this! Why could
not the wisdom that dictates the af-
fairs of men have permitted him to
live in 'the good old days" to which
he refers so frequently and pathetic
ally?
Il IF the next ten weeks are to be
filled with campaign balderdash and
Iclaptrap like that which emanated
from the Marion front porch last Fri
day, then is the American reading
public to be pitied," says the Tribune
and Times-Age. From the pasty,
turgid eloquence of his speech of ac-
tceptance, Mr. Harding has now des-
lcended to school essay platitudes
which are as disgusting as they are
untrue.
Which solemn and owl-like wisdom
he tells Ohio editors we need the old
standards of honesty, the old stan
dards of fidelity If by we he means
himself, his party managers and the
senatorial cabal, which did not even
honor him with membership, but
which dictates even his time of going
to bed and the number of respira-
tions he must take per minute, 1t can
be granted he knows what he is talk
ing about. :"
! The paper goes on to say that the
trouble with Candidate Harding is
that he has never got past the days
when every election was a free fight;
when voters were marched up to the
polls in squads, tickets already mark
led handed to them and were voted
under guard the same as sheep are
now sent to a packing house sham
bles. He is still living in those glor-
ious days, those days of transcenden-
tai honesty when the Standard Oil
openly lobbied in a score of state leg
islatures, brazenly bought legislative
majorities for candidates who un-
blushingly wore the Standard label
on the coat lapel; when George B.
Cox was Republican master in Ohio.
and the model for machine politicians
in every city in the country"
! Getting down to business. the pa
per fires this hot shot: IF, in his
rapid and grotesque talks he is mem
tally honest, then we submit he is
intellectually too dense to aspire to
the Office for which he has been nam
ed In what are present day Amer
leans lacking in their moral fibre
that they have to turn to Mr.. Hard
ing and his political sponsors for
spiritual enlightenment? What par
ticular qualifications has the senator
fal cabal to which Mr.. Harding has
weakly turned over the perogatives
of the presidential office, should he
chance to be elected, to guide the
rest, Of us into the superb moralities
of old?
1 1T the truth were known, Mr..
Harding and his guides are not be-
waiting our modern times because of
their degeneracy, but because we are
so far advanced over the days to
which he refers that his reflections on
the past make him envious of the
ease with which the political over
lords of those days handed it to
gullible and easily satisfied electors.
{. This paper holds no brief for Gov
ernor Cox 1t would as quickly ex-
pose similar outbursts of bunk and
political rot from him as it would
from Mr. Harding But, thank Heay-
EN-, Cox so far in his campaign, has
mercifully refrained from combining
his speeches to sheer idiocy about
"Americanism' and patriotism and
honesty and similar empty and dis
gusting platitudes."
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