Washington Standard

HERE IN OUR OWN COUNTY.

The lines are well drawn in the local county contest. On the one side are the candidates nominated through the influence of the Hopkins' organization and the old courthouse ring; on the other an opposition ticket composed of members of various parties who give no allegiance or owe no favors to any state committeeman. Neither the tariff on rubber nor the United States' relations with the moon have anything to do with it--it is the fight of the old ring for life against those who want a new order of things in the county courthouse, the new order of which the reduction of nearly three mills in the county tax levy for next year will be but the first example.

It's a winning fight, too. Hanging Jap Thacker up as a scarecrow because Thacker wouldn't kowtow to the hanger, won't elect any Republicans to county offices this fall, nor will throwing a lot of mud at George F. Yantis. The issue is plain and it can't be covered up. It's a question of Hopkins or anti-Hopkins, of the schemes and plots and favors of the ring against the people of this county who want to have something more to say than they have had in the past concerning their county government and county officials.

It's going to be an interesting fight, perhaps a dirty one, for the organization men promise they are going to throw a lot of mud. They will have to use something, of course, to cover up the main issue and it might as well be mud as anything else. They know they have a hard fight on their hands, they know their grip is loosening, and they will pull every wire they can, resort to any method, concoct any sort of story and circulate any sort of a yarn to get by.

But they won't succeed.