The Washington times., 1924-05-01
REPUBL|CAN|SM
IS TESTED IN
INDIANA
Triangular Race to Decide It
Khan Issues Outclass
Those of Party.
BY WILLIAM HARD.


try is thinking about and what the
country in fact is thinking about
and worrying about is aptly illus
trated today by the news reaching
here from the great central pivotal
State of Indiana.
One E. G. Toner, of Anderson,
Indiana, seems to be conducting
gigantic experiment in whether or
not Indiana can be carried on
issues of the broad high general
sort on which Washington supposes
the country to be meditating ana
palpitating.
Mr.. Toner is running for governor
and will get the Republican nomina-
ton for that Job or will fail to get
it in the primary on Tuesday OF
next week. He is a Roosevelt Re.
publican and also now regular Re-
publican He is in good Republican
standing. He is every sort of a
Republican, officially and regularly,
that there is. He desires to run for
governor as Republican. The
gigantic experiment which he Is
conducting is as to whether or not
a gentleman in the great central
pivotal state Of Indiana can get
across and get nominated in the
Republican Party on the issue OF
Republicanism and not on the issue
of the Ku Klux Khan.
Experiment Is Interesting.
It is believed that this experiment
should be watched with GREATNESS
interest from coast to coast. Mr..
Toner'S opponents in the choosing
of a statesman to run the insane
asylums and the prisons and the
other public institutions and agen-
cieS of the State of Indiana and
also to represent the Republican
ism of Indiana to-the nation are
gentlemen who are laboring might
lily for the khan or laboring nightly
against the khan and either say so
or are known to feel and do so.
Mr.. Toner. meanwhile. in the
midst of them, asserts the lofty
national proposition that Republi-
canism has nothing at all to do
one way OF the other with klanism
and that as a Republican. dedicated
to genuine national Republican
ideas, he will sink or swim, live or
die. survive or perish, and SO on.
. Meanwhile, in spite of all that
may be said about the Republican
party as the party of business pros
perity and of secure protection to
the high wages of American work
ing men, and in spite of all that
from any other standpoint may be
said regarding the peculiar and
especial virtues of Republicanism
as Republicanism in the national
and international sphere. there is
observed the advancing figure Of
Secretary of State Jackson of In
diana, running for the Republican
nomination for governor with the
thorough understanding that it is
he who above all other candi-
dates will be supported by the
Ku Klux Khan, and, IL elected, will
run the institutions of the State
of Indiana in harmony with ku
Klux Khan principles.
Lines Are Clear-Cut.
Meanwhile. nevertheless, on the
other side in Indiana. there is
also the advancing figure Of Lew
Shank. mayor of Indianapolis. VINO
is running for the Republican
nomination for Governor of In
diana, and who wishes to be the
supreme representative of Republl-
that he, if elected Governor, will
look after Indiana's prisoners and
lunatics and roads and other insti-
buttons and enterprises on a strictly
anti.Kl9n basis.
Mr.. Jackson and Mr.. Shank. as
Republicans, will be for the Khan
or against the Khan in the counSels
of the Republican party in it's re-
lations to the tariff, to immigra-
ton, 70 taxation and to other
problems.
Mr.. Toner, it appears out of au.
thentic advices from Indiana, IS
endeavoring to find out whether
nowadays man can successfully
be a Republican and a Republican
candidate without inTmersing him,
self in issues which have to do with
religion and with race, and which
are not countenanced by the Consti-
tuition of the United States, and
are in fact outlawed and ostracized
in principle and in theory by GER
tain wellknown amendments to the
Constitution.
Thus he elevates himself to the
position of a considerable national
character. He might almost be re-
garded as the snow-plow by which
it will be decided whether or not
this next national campaign can be
conducted on general national issues
or simply through innumerable col
lisions' between all sorts of local
and Special issues.
State Is Racked.
The national phenomenon and
portent is that the aforesaid great
central pivotal State of Indiana,
which aspires through Samuel M.
Ralston Ito provide the United
States with a President, is racked
from end to end by controversy
regarding peoples racial origins and
regarding peoples religious affilia-
tons.
The very populational center of
the United States-the State of In.
diana-is engaged in deciding DO.
litical issues, or Is in danger of
being about to decide them, on
racial and religious issues.
Mr.. Toner, with large backing, is
endeavorfng to oppose that prospect.
He Is endeavoring to prove that the
Ku Klux Khan and the opposition
to the Ku Klux Khan should have
no weight in Republican decisions
and purposes.
On what happens to him and to
Mr.. Jackson and to Mr.. Shank in
the Republican primary in Indiana
next Tuesday there depends much