Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1899 — POLITICS TO THE DAY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

POLITICS TO THE DAY

DEMOCRAT VOTES NOT SCARCEIt is to the interest, of course, of the Republicans to keep alive the belief that the Democrats were so badly beaten the last Presidential election that their chances of success next year are very slight. As a matter of fact, however, there was not a remarkable difference between the two parties in the total popular vote. McKinley led Bryan by almost an even 600,000, but if the Republicans had polled 150,000 votes less than they did they would have been in a minority, for the total opposition cast within 300,000 of theirs throughout the Union. The change of one vote in twenty from McKinley to Bryan would have made the latter President, and if the 133,000 ballots that were cast by the disgruntled Democrats for Palmer had remained with the regular party nominee a change of only about one in thirty would have been necessary to put him in the lead. It is not true, either, as the Republicans have claimed, that the vote for Bryan fell off from what was expected on the strength of the Democratic vote of previous years. Bryan in 1896. received nearly half a million more votes than did Cleveland in 1892. The Democracy did not gain as much during the four years’ interval as the Republicans did. but, all things considered, they held their own pretty well, even among those who grew to manhood between these two elections, The Democratic party kept itself in quite good shape under very adverse circumstances, and it has recuperated wonderfully since then. In New York State, where McKinley three years ago had a plurality of 208.000 over Bryan, the Republicans last year could muster only a beggarly 18,000 for their candidate for Governor, who had the advantage of a brilliant Spanish war record and a strong personal attraction for a large portion of the independent voters. Other States have done almost as well as New York since 1896, and there is nothing whatever about the political outlook to dishearten any Democrat. On the contrary, the promise of victory is bright, and is becoming more roseate all the time. —New York News. What the Flag Stands For. “The flag,” declared President McKinley, in his speech at Ocean Grove, “does not stand for one thing in the United States and another thing in Porto Rico and the Philippines.” Let us see whether it does or not. The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States provides that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” The flag on American soil proper symbolizes this spirit of universal liberty to a remarkable degree. Only In exceptional cases, where a corporationowned judge issues injunctions against strikers quitting work, is there such thing among us as involuntary servitude. But our brethren, the Moros of the Sulu group, are not so fortunate, although they live under the same flag, and their Sultan, for a consideration, has agreed not to “haul it down." Among them, a prominent writer who has just visited the Sultanate declares girls of 15 are valued at five bushels of rice. Another magazine contributor, John Foreman, informs us that “slavery exists in the most ample sense.” We should think it dqes. when, in addition to slavery being hereditary, prisoners of war. insolvent debtors and captives secured through piratical expeditions become bondmen. Whether these prisoners of war. booked for sale to the “Dutch planters of Borneo,” will In future be captured under the flag which “does not mean one thing in the United States and another in Porto Rico and the Pbilipines,” the President does not make quite clear. McLeabn's domination. John R. McLean, editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer, has been nominated by the Ohio State Democratic convention for Governor, and he will doubtless be elected, in speaking of the prospects Mr. McLean says; “Ohio Is good fighting ground this year. The people are in revolt against Hanna, for his tyranny and brutality; against McKinley, for his subversion of the principle on which American independence was founded, and against the Republican party, for Its pandering to the Influences that are hostile to every Interest of the people. I can see my way clear now to predict a victory for Democracy In November. All I ask is the earnest, loyal, sincere support of all Democrats.” This is encouraging and honest talk, and Is In line with the general trend of opinion in Ohio. McLean stands on a true Democratic platform, reaffirming the Chicago document from start to finish, favoring free silver, denouncing trusts, and Indorsing William J. Bryan as candidate for President in 1900. The outlook In Ohio is bright for the Democrats. McLean is a fighter and a shrewd political organizer. He possesses ample means, edits a great newspaper and goes in to win.—Chicago Democrat MecKinley on the War. At Pittsburg President McKinley made a speech to the returned Pennsylvania volunteers and their friends in which he took occasion to say that the war in the Philippines was entirely just and would be continued until the

insurgents capitulated. Under the circumstances. it is difficult to see how the President could have said anything else, for the situation demanded some expresion of opinion, no matter how much the facts might be made to suffer. McKinley asserts that the Phllippines belong to the United States by right of conquest. If that is the case, what prompted this government to pay Spain $20,000,000 for the islands? In either event, what right had the administration to impose a government upon 10,000,000 people who don’t want to accept it and who are fighting against it? But McKinley can not be logical in discussing the Philippine question. He wishes to erect an argument that will justify his course of conduct, but the facts are against him. Therefore, his only course is to Ignore and distort the facts. There can be no doubt that the Republcan administration has blundered badly in this imperialistic campaign. The people are opposed to it, and President McKinley is at his wit’s end in a vain attempt to bolster up his position by badly constructed and fallacious arguments. Porter Says Europe Is Prosperous. Robert P. Porter, whose relations to the McKinley system of prosperity are substantially those of a phonograph to a business office, says that Europe is also very prosperous. This talking machine is now in London, and his opinion of European commercial and industrial matters is thought to be so important that it is transmitted by special cable to tbe American press. Mr. Porter says that he has visited all the countries of Europe except Spain and Portugal and that he has met flush times wherever he has been. Mr. Porter “was struck with the air of general prosperity.” Work is plentiful and there Is nowhere an appearance of want. In the continental cities, Including Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Amsterdam. vast numbers of buildings are under construction. The demand for iron work is greater than European manufacturers can supply, which is the reason w hy contracts are awarded to American manufacturers. Europeans are buying large quantities of American machinery, with which they manufacture articles that come in competition all over the world with similar articles of American manufacture. They purchase their tools of us and then undersell us on our products.— Exchange. Bryan on Trnsts. Thus succinctly did Mr. Bryan put the trust question in his Chicago address: “On the trust question I suggest the following propositions for your consideration First. The trust is a menace to the welfare of the people of the United States, because it creates a monopoly and gives it to the few In control of the monopoly almost unlimited power over the lives and happiness of the consumers, employes and producers of raw material. Second. The President appoints the Attorney General, who will enforce anti-trust laws. Third. The Attorney General can recommend sufficient laws, if present laws are insufficient. F'ourth. The Attorney General can recommend an amendment to the Constitution, if the present Constitution makes it impossible to extinguish the trusts. Fifth. The Republican party is powerless to extinguish the trusts so long as the trusts furnish money to continue the Republican party in power.”-—Phillipsburg (N. J.) News. Altgeld on Hero Wosthip. Compared with the mighty civil war, the late Cuban war scarcely rises to the dignity of a skirmish, yet the heroes of the late war seem to be more numerous than all the heroes, Union or Confederates, of the civil war. We are not hero worshipers, nor, on the other hand, are we devoted to the fortunes of any one man. We view this whole situation calmly, and even coldly. We rate men not by the clothes they wear, but by the principles they stand for, and by the services they render their country. And viewed from this standpoint, never before in the history of any country or any people, was the cause of freedom, the cause of a great people, so heroically and so ably maintained in all its integrity as It has been during the last three years by William J. Bryan. And when we say this, we are not indulging in hero worship, hut are simply recognizing a great fact.—John P. Altgeld. South’s Military Apathy. There is no disposition in the South to desert the flag when it is in danger, still when war is not national but partisan in its character and management, the South feels under no obligation to assist in pulling Mr. McKinley out of the hole. It is no want of patriotism disclosed by the situation, but the quiet resentment, so long as the country is in no danger, of the former scurvy treatment of Southern volunteers by the administration.—Houston Post. No Need of Government Help. If ex-Senator Warner Miller is so confident the Nicaragua canal can be built for $100,000,000, and that it will pay dividends on that investment, why does he not borrow the money, as he says be can do, and build the canal? This would be decidedly more profitable than fighting tbe transcontinental railroad lobby in Congress, which be affirms is the only opposition to the plan of getting the government to invest in the ditch.— Omaha Bee.

POLITICS OF THE DAY