The narrow margin between the great parties in Indiana has made the capital a centre of incessant political activity. The geographical position of the city has also contributed to this, the state leaders and managers being constant visitors. Every second man you meet is a statesman; every third man is an orator. The largest social club in Indiana exacts a promise of fidelity to the Republican party,--or did, until insurgency made the close scrutiny of the members’ partisanship impolite if not impolitic!--and within its portals chances and changes of men and measures are discussed tirelessly. And the pilgrim is not bored with local affairs; not a bit of it! Municipal dangers do not trouble the Indianapolitan; his eye is on the White House, not the town hall. The presence in the city through many years of men of national prominence--Morton, Harrison, Hendricks, McDonald, English, Gresham, Turpie, of the old order, and Fairbanks, Kern, Beveridge, and Marshall in recent years--has kept Indianapolis to the fore as a political centre. Geography is an important factor in the distribution of favors by state conventions. Rivalry between the smaller towns is not so marked as their united stand against the capital, though this feeling seems to be abating. The city has had, at least twice, both United States Senators; but governors have usually been summoned from the country. Harrison was defeated for governor by a farmer (1876), in a heated campaign, in which “Kid-Gloved Harrison” was held up to derision by the adherents of “Blue-Jeans Williams.” And again, in 1880, a similar situation was presented in the contest for the same office between Albert G. Porter and Franklin Landers, both of Indianapolis, though Landers stood ruggedly for the “blue jeans” idea. The high tide of political interest was reached in the summer and fall of 1888, when Harrison made his campaign for the presidency, largely from his own doorstep. Marion County, of which Indianapolis is the seat, was for many years Republican; but neither county nor city has lately been “safely” Democratic or Republican. At the city election held in October, 1904, a Democrat was elected mayor over a Republican candidate who had been renominated in a “snap” convention, in the face of aggressive opposition within his party. The issue was tautly drawn between corruption and vice on the one hand and law and order on the other. An independent candidate, who had also the Prohibition support, received over five thousand votes.