Democratic Sentinel, Volume 20, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 June 1896 — POLITICS OF THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS OF THE DAY

DEMOCRATIC OPPORTUNITY. McKinley’s nomination, predicted as eertaln by the World six weeks ago, Is now conceded by everybody who speaks his honest thought. There will not even be a ballot at St. Louis—only a shout. McKinley’s triumph is Democratic opportunity. The Ohio leader represents every element and phase and consequence of Republicanism that is antagonistic to Democracy. His nomination will present the issue between the parties square-cut on every side. Twice on these issues he and his party have been overwhelmingly defeated before the people. In 1888 the Republicans carried the country, electing their President and a majority off Congress. Mr. McKinley stood sponsor for the tariff bill which represented the policy of his party and the claims of its campaign contributors. At the election in 1890 the people passed judgment upon it. They converted a working Republican majority in the House into a Democratic majority of 148. They left McKinley himself at home. They rolled up a popular majority against McKlnleyism of 1,332,000. The Republican contention was that the vote was hasty. The people, they said,, had not experienced sufficiently long iue beauties of the McKinley tariff and the Reed expenditures. But in 1892, after two years’ experience, the people reaffirmed their verdict. They elected Grover Cleveland by an electoral majority of 132 and a popular plurality of 382,956. They returned a Democratic majority of 94 in the House. They recovered the Senate and elected a majoritj’ of governors. It was a tidal-wave submerging—the second overthrow of McKlnleyism. Again McKinley is coming before the country as the champion of protection—though we have a tariff quite as high as that recommended by the Republican Tariff Commission in 1883 and enacted by a Republican Congress. He is to be posed as “the advance agent of Prosperity”—prosperity of the sort illustrated by the Homestead strike and riots, by hundreds of other strikes and lockouts, by the failure to secure any advance in wages to accompany the large advance in bounties to the protected industries, and finally, in the last year of his tariff, by a million workingmen out of employment, nn empty treasury, a dissipated gold reserve and a monetary panic. If Democracy means one thing and Republicanism another, could Democrats ask a clearer issue, a fairer field or a more vulnerable candidate? Standing against any tariff disturbance that is not in the direction of revenue to the treasury and relief to consumers, reaffirming every distinctive Democratic principle with clearness and vigor, and nominating a candidate who honestly represents them, the party would be fully armed for the contest. It would have its quarrel just. McKinley’s triumph is Democratic opportunity. Is the party wise enough to imgrove It?— New York World.

“Equal and Universal.” The Pennsylvania Republicans, in their convention resolutions, tell the people that protection “should be as nearly as possible equal and universal.’’ Why the reservation “as nearly as possible?” Why not entirely “equal and universal?” We confess that we should not have been surprised to Arid this claim being made, but it seems to have staggered the men who framed these resolutions, and they felt compelled to qualify them. This for the very good reason that such a declaration would have involved a contradiction in turn. No protection, as it is designed In this country, can be equal and universal; just as much as it approaches to being equal and universal, it ceases to be protection. The essence of protection is partiality. Protect everybody and nobody is protected. The advantage in protection is that it aids one man’s business while it does not aid another's. This is a fact so obvious that even Pennsylvanians have not had the courage to ignore it—Boston Herald. Vain Jingo Speeches in Congress, With the people of the United States pledged to peace by all the considerations of material prosperity, with the executive department of the Government pledged openly, by the official utterances of its head, to the policy of universal peace, the rash speeches in a Congress whlchAe playing politics on the eve of a' general election should count for little. And it Is to be noted further that none of the belligerent resolutions introduced in this Congress have been adopted in a shape pointing to war. The future of the United States is a future of peace.—Boston Post. Too Much Cut and Dried. It is interesting to note that the Apparent easy victory of McKinley is likely to have the effect of reducing the attendance at the St. Louis convention. There is no fun in a convention which meets merely as a formality, and whose choice is known beyond serious question weeks In advance. It is said that the attendance from Washington will be, comparatively small, and politicians generally, who enjoy a close fight, will not be cjamorous to get to St Louis under the circumstances.—lndianapolis News. Quality and Pyice Drifting Apart. The fit of generosity which impelled Congress to vote to its members a sheer gratuity of $1,200 a year, ostensibly for clerk hire, has developed the fact that the average cost to the country of our modern statesmen is four times what it was when Adams, Clay, Webster and their compeers sat in the halls of Congress. And the worst of it is that while the price has gone up the quality has as steadily gone down. Philadelphia Record. ( Beards and Presidential Booms. There is something ominous in the facts recalled by New York politicians with reference to the fate of beardless men who have sought presidential honors. William H. Seward was beardless and ho was put in nomination by Mr.

Evarts, whose face was smooth like his own. Tilden was likewise without hirsute adornment, and so are McKinley, Morton and Reed. Politicians are not devoid of superstition, and there are those who profess tp see in the beardlessness of McKinley a fact fraught with considerable significance.—St Louis Republic. McKinley'* Straddle-Bus Button. Reed as a wit has been in eclipse for months. As a Presidential candidate he has been forced to restrain his predilection to Joke and to let fly all sorts of sarcastic quips. Perhaps the McKinley wave which has swept everything before it has brought the reflection that he’s not in it this time. And perhaps the McKinley triumphs liavo been taken as a release from this restraint so irritating to a man of his effervescent nature. At all events, lie couldn’t resist the temptation to make tills comment on McKinley’s evasive

Straddle-bog-(n.). A sort of tumble bug, a sea>-faced beet'e, with 'ong legs of the genus canthon (U. B.) Century Dictionary. attitude on the financial question. In discussing attempts to get a straightforward statement from McKinley on his money views, he said to-day: “McKinley doesn’t want to be called a gold bug or a silver bug, so he has compromised on a straddle bug.” A McKinley campaign button, made on the lines of Reed's views, might resemble somewhat the above picture. The bracketed U. 8. means that this bug is peculiar to the United States. Relic of Republican Extravagance. It that the present administration has issued bonds to the amount of $202,000,000, but if it had inherited, as its predecessor did, an Immense surplus it would not hqye been compelled to Increase the public debt. For whatever of blame has been incurred by the borrowing of money under the Cleveland administration the Fifty-third and Fifty-fourth Congresses are responsl. ble. Nd glory belongs to Harrison, no blame to Cleveland, for the payment of bonds by the former or the issue of bonds by the latter. Both of these administrations simply performed their, duty in meeting the appropriations and protecting the national credit. One found a full treasury and emptied it. The other found an empty treasury and has been compelled to replenish IL— Washington Post. Usual Trick of the Trust*. When it turned cold last autumn everybody was obliged to have coal. The coal conspirators took advantage of the necessity. They added largely to rhe price of that neceksary of life. Now that warm weather has suddenly come everybody must have ice, whatever it costs. Thereupon the ice monopolists have advanced the price of that necessary. We have laws that denounce such conspirators as criminals and prescribe the penitentiary as their proper place of residence. But not a single prosecution has been instituted, and there is so little prospect of any that the conspirators go about thelV work openly as if it were ordinary, honest business.—New York World.

Better Machinery, Not Protection, If our cotton and woolen mithufaaturers would throw oqt their ,qld and antiquated machinery, and throw in to their business the advantage of thoroughly skilled artistic labor, they would have no need of building higher tariff walls. The greater part of the Importations of cottons and woolens Into the United States are brought hither be Cause of the beauty and fineness of the fabrics. We buy them of the foreign makers because we cannot get them of our tariff-coddled home manufacturers, whose market is dependent upon legls lative restrictions, and who neglect to keep step wlth the advancing technical and mechanical skill of their outside competitors.—Philadelphia Record. Petty Pilferers in Congress. The people have known for many years that Senators and Representatives have been feathering their own nests, but they were not prepared for the effrontery with which a majority of the House openly recorded them-selves-Friday as petty pilferers of the public treasury by voting to each member $1,200 a year for clerk hire, whether he hires a clerk or not.—St. Louis Post-Dlspatciu Reed Has a ? WiH of Hie Own. One of the objections that some of the Warwicks have to Reed as a Presidential candidate is that he has such a marked individuality of character and Is so prone to have his own way, once he has decided what ft should be, ttjat they could not hope to control him. He is not the pliant tool that McKinley has shown himself to be.—Detroit Free Press. . ,’ • Two Ways of Going to Work, " The Republicans seem to have settled on a candidate for President, but they have the ticklish work of making a platform yet to attend to. The Democrats seem to be going at the platform work first. Good idea.—Cincinnati Enquirer. i- , A Unique Advance Agent. Most advance agents incline to be talkative. Fancy an Advance Agent of Prosperlty'who can’t be coaxed to say a single definite word respecting the character of the show of which he is in advance!—Philadelphia Record. Chief of “ Taller Dog” Candidate*. The “yaller dogs’ have had a great swing in the Republican party of Illinois, but none of them has been as “yaQer” as the present gubernatorial candidate.—St Louis Republic.