The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1932-07-18
Watson's COattaiIs


Senator James Eli Watson announces
that he will not return to Indiana during
the special session of the legislature. His
reason is explicit. Rather, it is an AFFECT
confession.
I am not going to give any one chance
o grab me by the coattails," is the an
nouncement of the great statesman.
Passing the suggestion that, where
issues are involved, his coattails are the only
part of his vesture ever visible to the voter,
the senator says that he knows nothing of
the problems before the legislature, nothing
Of the conditions in the state and has no
suggestions.
Here is the real Watson, admitting his
nudity of ideas and of thoughts or principles.
There are hundreds of thousands Of men
and women out of work and Watson knows
nothing of Indiana.
There are thousands of families living
upon charity from public funds that are near
depletion, and he does not even suggest that
the hungry must be fed and the naked
clothed.
There are increasing numbers of farm
ers whose lands are being confscated by an
unjust share of taxation, and this expert on
tariffs will not lend, even by word, his SEN
atorial influence to relief.
There are small home owners whose life
savings are being threatened by catastrophe,
and Watson refuses to come to the state
which sent him, to its own shame and grief,
+o +na TT,oi+od Sopofo m 0ixya ron str1Ic-
tive contribution to the problem.
There is an emergency in the state-so
declared by Governor Leslie-and Watson
does not dare to return to his stricken and
embarrassed province.
He serves notice upon the voters of this
state that he does not care to listen to their
troubles.
He serves notice that he does not want
a single citizen of this state to grab his coat
tails as he lodges the results of his lifetime
of evasion and political perfdy.
Others have not found him so inacces-
sible. There was, for example, the sugar
lobbyist who turned over stock of a sugar
company in return for the unsecured note
of the senator.
By tariff increases, upon which the SEN
ator would have an important voice, the
stock should have increased in price. That
was the expectation when Watson took the
stock from the man interested in an action
of the senate.
The depression, not the refusal Of Wat
son to attempt to increase the value of his
stock by an increase in the price of sugar to
every family in the state, prevented the
profit
And Watson, with a brazenness never
equaled in the history of the senate, an
nounced that the note he gave was worthless
and the stock for which it paid was also
worthless.
The state may be congratulated that
Watson will not come back to Indiana with
any suggestions.
If he gave advice there would always be
the suspicion that some special interest had
handed him securities in return for worth
less notes in order to influence his opinion.
When cowardice is added to such ethical
and moral blindness, no voter of this state
can be longer fooled. Indiana owes the nation
the duty of seeing that Watson no longer has
a voice in national affairs. 1t owes itself
the duty of restoring it's own self-respect
that not even an invitation to Rapidan can
bulwark.