Volume 15 , Issue 33

One Hundred Years Ago - 2 September 1913, Tuesday

Scouring the chronicling America old newspaper on the web, we found in The Daily Ardmoreite, 2 September 1913, Tuesday, the following headlines, "Democrats Enroll Big Membership," demanding that republican office holders be replaced with loyal democrats.

OKC, OK, Sept. 1 (1913) -- Eight hundred members were enrolled at the organization of the Jacksonian Club by local Democrats on Thursday night, and resolutions were adopted declaring that "to the victors belong the spoils," and that party organization can only be successfully maintained when efforts of devoted workers are fittingly recognized in the rewards of office. Another principle announced by the new club was that those elected to office by Democratic votes must take an active part in replacing Republican officeholders of every kind with Democrats whose party loyalty is above reproach.

Other declarations by the new club were:

"The revocation or repeal of all orders or laws undertaken by the retiring Republican President of other officials to perpetuate their partisans in office is an imperative duty of Democrats in authority, and the party owes it to its own self-respect to provide for a just division of such positions in the civil service as are filled by men whose fitness has never been tested by civil service rules to the end that Democrats may share evenly in this patronage.

"In the distribution of patronage each State or section should have it's proportionate part. It is an offense, too, and a reflection upon Oklahoma Democracy that so few positions have come to this State. The memory of impositions practiced upon this section in Republican days by importation of Carpetbaggers from other States to fill public positions here is such as to render any semblance of a return to such a condition in the highest degree unwise and condemnable.

It is hoped that Jacksonian Democracy throughout the State of Oklahoma will rally to the support of these principles and will so assert itself that those members of the party honored with positions and power will heed the wishes of those who have fought in the trenches in the last campaigns and who still remain faithful to the teachings of the fathers."

A resolution was adopted demanding of the Oklahoma congressional delegation its opposition to the confirmation of Preston B. McGoodwin of Oklahoma as Minister to Venezuela providing it be found that he actively supported Taft as against Bryan in the State of Ohio in 1908, as has been charged.

The following officers of the club, which was to be made State-wide in scope, were elected. J. H. Sharp, president' L. F. Adams, second vice-president; Claude Miller, third vice-president; Myron Pyle, secretary; Tom Hinley, assistant secretary, and B. A. Walker, treasurer.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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