Jasper County Democrat, Volume 3, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 August 1900 — Page 6

'Twixt Life and Death

BY FRHNK BRRRETT

CHAPTER ll.—(Continued.) “You did seem rather worried, dear.” "Oh, I was. To begin with, I didn’t like the part I had to play, as you know. As Mrs. V’ic had written it out it was simply ridiculous. Now when the dresser told me how she had seen it played, I •aw what a capital part it might be made; and when I thought of this letter, I resolved to play it. So I went to the station for a copy of Goldsmith, and studied it with the dresser, who promised to make me up exactly like the actor she had seen. If I am expelled from one school,- it's pretty certain that another won’t take me when they hoar what they are exposing themselves to!”, “But isn’t it rather dreadful tp be expelled, Nessa?” “I shall not be expelled, I shall resign,’’ said Nessa, loftily. “I have not studied the political history of the British constitution for nothing,” she added, with a flash of humor in her eyes. “When are you going to resign, dear?” “The very first thing to-morrow morning. I made Tinkleton promise she would say nothing about the performance to Mrs. Vic to-night in order that I myself might tell her in the morning. You may be sure she was glad to get out of it. There’s another reason why I prefer to resign. If I were expelled. Mrs, Vie would get nothing out of Mr. Redmond; but if I resign, he must send her the payment for a term, and that will help to compensate the poor old soul for the injury I have done the school." “And where shall you go when you ' leave here?” “To Grahame Towers, of course.” “But aren’t you afraid, Nessa?" “Afraid of what—that coward? Not I. If I were a man I’d be a soldier like my I father. There’s nothing I should like | bettor than a good fight with that villain, ! Redmond.” “But are you sure he’s a coward, | dear?" asked one of the girls naively. “I am certain that he is. I am anxious ; for to-morrow to come: but, oh!” she i added, with a sudden drop in her voice I as the tears sprang into her eyes, "I shall ! never have The heart to say good-by to you, dears.” There were hugging and kissing all around, and then Nessa, bursting away, said, “Come, let us get it over now. There, take these, Dolly; and now, little witch, you’re next. Choose what you would like.” But the “little witah,” sitting on the bed with her face buried in her hands, shook her head and whimpered. She was a strangely small girl for her age, with long, thin fingers, a dark complexion and black hair, long and sleek as an Indian’s. Her ways W'ere odd and seclusive. Sometimes the girls found her seated in the dark, huddled up with her chin resting on her knees, and her weird, vacant eyes half closed, as if her spirit was wandering in some other world. She could interpret dreams, ami make sense out of the greatest rubbish. She was an authority on all that concerned signs and tokens and palmistry, nnd had worn a smuggled pack of cards limp in telling the girls’ fortunes. Her title was not unmerited. The girls gathered about her prepared for some new sensation in the romance of* this night. Nessa alone seemed to be unawed. “What’s the matter, yon little goose? Is there anything dreadful in giving presents?” “Don’t, don’t!” pleaded the little witch, without removing her hands. “It’s like Naomi, my sister. When she was going to die she made us take things." “But I am not going to die. Look at me—do I look like it?” “You don’t know all,” said the girl, shivering, and whispering so low that her words were scarcely audible. “Not all that 1 know. I would not tell yon while it might do you harm to know, but I must now that it may save you. Oh, you must not go!” She raised herself suddenly and threw her arms about Nessa’s neck; “you, so beautiful and kind,” she added, nettling herself in Nessa’s ready embrace. “Why, dear, why?” whispered Nessa, coaxingly. "You are in danger. Your life is not safe. There is going to be a great change, and there is peril in your path. I have seen it whenever I have looked—in the cards, in your ham). Your line of life is broken in the nineteenth year.” Nessa was the only one of all the little group who was not terrified into silence by the little witch's prophecy. "Oh, come, this is too bad, after promising me last week that I should have riches and long life,” she murmured, playfully, as she smoothed her cheeks upon the girl’s sleek hair. “Two things can’t be true, yon know; and of the two I would prefer to believe your first promise. " “They arc both true,” said the girl, with feverish eagerness; “you will be happy if you live; but there are three years of terrible danger before you. It was that I dared not tell you. Oh, do, do stay with us till the peril Is past." Nessa herself stood now in silence, subdued with grave perplexity by the earnestness of her little friend. But suddenly a ray of intelligence gleamed in her face, and unclasping the girl's clinging arms from her neck, she put her away, holding her at arm's length. “You little trickster!" she exclaimed, with mock disdain; “I have found you out. I see through your conjuring. You have been thinking about that clause in the codicil that puts Mr. Redmond in possession of my fortune if I die before twenty-one, and it struck you that he might murder me for my money if he got me under his band in Grahame Towers. I forgive you, dear,” she added, taking the child back to her bosom, and kissing her, “for your sweet love of me; but, oft. you are awfully mistaken If yon think that fear would keep me from getting into difficulties.” CHAPTER in. It was about five o’clock when Nessa reached her destination.

“Is It far to Grahame Towers?” she asked the porter. “A matter of four or five miles before you got to the park, and then there’s the best part of a mile to the house. Take a fly. Miss?” “Yes; fetch my luggage, please. There are two tin boxes with my name on them —Grahame.” She changed her last half-sovereign at the refreshment bar, where she had a cup of tea, gave the porter a shilling, and looking in the portemonnaie at her slender resources as the fly started on its journey, she said to herself, “If I find no one there whatever shall I do?” She had taken irrevocable steps; but her courage had been sorely ivied by the °f those she was leaving behind forever. Even Mrs. Vic, at the last moment, had broken down, and forgiving her, with tears in her eyes, begged her to stay on. As for Tinkleton and the girls, the way they took on at parting was quite dreadful to remember. In addition to these memories, reaction after the excitement of last night made the girl’s heart very heavy indeed. Iler spirits revived when the driver, turning round, pointed with his whip to a massive building rising boldly out of the dark green oaks on a distant hill, and told her it was Grahame Towers, It was something to feel that a place of such imposing grandeur was hers. The pride of her heart was stirred again when she caught sight of the magnificent avenue guarded by rampant panthers flanking the great gates at the entrance. It was noble!—and, thank goodness, the gates were open. Half way up the great drive they met a wagon loaded with the trunk of an enormous oak. “Cutting my timber!” exclaimed Nessa, with indignation. A little further on the driver pulled up. A gentleman in shooting costume stood with a gun under his arm directly in the way. It was clear to see by his commanding presence that he was master there. As the fly stopped he came to the side, and, seeing a lady, raised his hat. It was three years since they met, and for the moment he failed to recognize Nessa. Three make a great difference in the appearance of a girl at that time of life; they make little or none in a man of middle age. Nessa knew him at once, though his black whiskers, which were formerly trimmed to a point, were now shaved to the fashionable military cut —she knew him by those long, sleepy eyes, and that odious smile. She bowed with severe formality. In that moment he perceived that the haughty young lady before him was the disagreeable child he bad seen last in a short dress. “Nessa!” he exclaimed, the amiability going suddenly from his face, “why on earth have you come here?” "Because it is my home, and I intend to stay here for the present.” “You will do nothing of the kind. I told you that it was my wish you should stay in the school where I placed yo\i.” "As you see, I have not stayed there.” “Then you will be good enough to return at once.” “Quite out of the question; I have rendered that impossible.” “How?” “This is hardly a suitable place for discussing our affairs, Mr. Redmond.” “Discussing our affairs, indeed! The discussion begins and ends here. Turn around,” he added, addressing the driver, imperatively. The driver turned about with a grin on his broad face, and said: "Where am I t<? take you now, miss?” “To the nearest magistrate.” "Why. that's Sir Thomas Bullen at the Chase." "Then drive to-the Chase.” The blow stunned Redmond. He had reason to dread inquiry. He could say nothing. His narrow, unsteady eyes betrayed the fear and the venomous hatred in his heart. "Who-oah!” cried the driver, reining in his horse, as n light phaeton came sharply round the bend in the drive. “Confusion!” muttered Redmond, furiously, as he caught sight of the phaeton and the Indy who drove in it; the next moment, with abject entreaty in his face, he turned to Nessa and said hurriedly, in a low tone: "For heaven’s sake, go away! There’s a hotel in Lullingford. I'll meet you there this evening, and agree to anything you like to propose.” Nessa was the last person in tho world to be moved by n bribe, and the bare idea of quitting the park as if she had no right to be there was sufficient incentive to stay there. Added to this, the lady in the phaeton so managed her spirited cob as to make it doubtful which side of the road she intended to keep. She wished to know something more about this fly and the horse and the young lady, who even at a distance was strikingly pretty in her close-fitting jacket and neat hat. As she at length pulled up, almost within a hand's reach of Nessa, she bowed, and looked to Redmond for an explanation. There was no help for it. Redmond, with a sufficiently bad grace, introduced the two ladies. "Miss Grahame, my—ch—stepdaughter, Mrs. Redmond, my wife.” Mrs. Redmond smiled very sweetly, and bowed again. She was a very showy woman, tall and comely, with a heavy plait of shining yellow hair; dark eyebrows and lashes; and the most lovely pink-and-white complexion. At' a distance Nessa thought she could not be more than five or six-and-twenty, but, on closer examination, she suspected herself in error A little crease In the eyelid, a little pleat under the eye, a certain harness and thinness in the mobile nostrils, and a pucker in her throat when she turned her head, made Nessa believe that she might be live or six-and-thirty. or even more. On tha whole, Nessa fait disposed to like Mrs. Rsdmond—she looked amiable and simple, despite tha touch of bistre under her eyes, which surely could not be natural.

But while Nessa had been coming to this conclusion the woman had arrived at a far more definite estimation of her character, and decided, among other things, that she was a young person whom it wonld be far easier to lead than to drive. . , With the sweetest expression still upon her face, Mrs. Redmond turned from Nessa to her husband, with the slightest interrogative lifting of her prettily arched eyebrows. “Miss Grahame enme here to pay us a visit,” he explained, with ill-concealed embarrassment; “but I have persuaded her to return to the hotel at Lullingford, where she will be much more at her ease. We have no accommodation in this wretched old ruin, you know.” “Oh, we are not so badly off as that, dear. We can certainly find a room, and if Miss Grahame will accept the best we have to offer——” "Well, settle it as you please,” interrupted Redmond. “I’m off for an hour’s shooting,” and, raising his hat, he turned his back and hurried off —saving himself, as wag his habit, from the present difficulty, and leaving the worst for the future. "Shall we walk to she house, dear? Then we can talk as we go along,” said Mrs. Redmond. Nessa accepted readily. Mrs." Redmond handed the reins to the old man in livery who occupied the seat beside her, and, stepping to the ground, shook Nessa heartily by the band. “You will bring the luggage up to the house,” she said to the flyman. "Do you know, dear," said Mrs. Redmond, taking Nessa’s arm as they walked toward the house, “this is the first time I ever heard your name! Men are so reserved about business matters, and I suppose you have some business relations with him?” “Oh, yes; he is my guardian. I came here to have an understanding with him about my position.” "Your guardian! How odd he should never have told me anything about it. I feel quite hurt, dear; it looks almost like a . want .of confidence. I knew, of course, that Mr. Redmond was a widower when I married him, but he never told me that Mrs. Grahame had left any children. Per.haps he thought I should want to have you with me—as I certainly should, having no children of my own. But you are not a child now. Have you any brothers or sisters?” “No, I don’t know that I have any relations at all; I have never seen, never heard of any,” said Nessa; and she gave a brief outline of her life at school, warming up as she went on under the stimulating sympathy of her companion, an<J telling finally the manner of her leaving Eagle House. Mrs. Redmond was immensely tickled with her account of the performance, which Nessa gave with considerable humor, being of an impulsive and expansive nature. “You can't tell how glad I am that you have come here, dear,” said Mrs. Redmond; “and I’m sure that, with the money it would cost to keep you at school you can provide amply for your wants. Of course, your mamma left a proper provision for you?” “Oh, yes; I have a copy of her will in my box. I was to have eight hundred a year during my minority.” “Eight hundred a year! That’s quite a great deal. Eight hundred a year!” she repeated, reflectively. “But surely, dear, you will soon be of age; you look quite a woman.” "I shall not be of age for three years.” “Only eighteen! And, of course, when you are twenty-one you will have more even than you have now.” “Oh, 1 shall have everything. This es-tate-all is left to me.” Mrs. Redmond stopped with an exclamation that had something of dismay in it; but, quickly recovering her self-pos-session, she drew Nessa’s arm closer to her side, and said: “You must' forgive tne, dear. This is such a surprise, and I feel so wounded to think that my husband should not have told me something about his position. f dare say he has his own independent fortune; but beyond that he has nothing whatever to come—to come from this estate?” “Nothing that he can legally claim; but, of course,” said Nessa. her generous disposition overcoming her late hostility —“of course I should never-never— —” She hesitated, at a loss to find a phrase that might assure her new friend of a kindly intention without wounding her feelings. “I know what you would say,” said Mrs. Redmond; “that if my husband should happen to be in difficulties, and we found ourselves without a penny in the world at the end of three years, you would give us a home and—and food——” She stopped, choked with disappointment, indignation, envy and malice; but in the next moment masked her feelings under a Judas’ kiss, as she murmured: “Oh, you dear, dear, generous, kind-hearted friend.” (To be continued.)

Two Bad Things.

Shall I give you a parable? asks Mark Guy Pearse. Once upon a time there was a man walking in the highway and he fell. No doubt it was partly his own carelessness. He, however, insisted that it was an accident. But the trouble was, that when he was down he stayed there, and spent all ids time In telling everybody who would listen how it happened. Some shook their heads doubtfully, nnd that made him angry. Some sympathized with him, nnd that made him sad. At last there came a simple man who asked: "How long have you been here?” It was ten, twelve, fifteen years or more. The simple man shook his head, “I am sorry, very sorry.” "Yes," said he who was down, “It Is a terrible thing to tumble down." “That may be," said tho simple man, "but there’s one thing a thousand times worse.” < “What is that?" “Why, not getting up again."

The Proper Response.

Mamma-Why did you let him kiss you? Daughter- Well, he was so nice; he asked me Mnmma—But haven't I told you you must learn to say "No?” Daughter—That’s what I did say. Ho asked me if I’d be very angry if ho kissed me.—Philadelphia Pres*.

BILLTHE BLUNDERER

APPELLATION WHICH MAY BE GIVEN M’KINLEY. Pr**ld*nt la Likely to Involve the United State* in China Just no Ho Haa Done in the Fhilippinea—Luzon Not Subjugated. Washington correspondence: There will be no special session of Congress. At first it was rather h puzzle to know why McKinley was so afraid of his own Congress, but a canvass of the directory showed that so many of the opulent Republican Congressmen are spending the summer in Europe that the Impecunious Democrats who stay at home would have a majority in the House If an extra session were called now. The administration has no notion of having a hostile Congress on its hands with an election approaching. His own Republican Congress made more adverse campaign material than McKinley likes to contemplate. A session now with the Democrats in control in the House would emphasize the issue of Imperialism in the most startling fashion. McKinley hurried to Washington from Canton at the first report of the murder of the legations at Pekin, but now he has gone back and resumed his front poroh campaign. Meanwhile about 15,000 troops will be sent over to China to get into quarrels with the troops of the continental powers. When they have been sacrificed McKinley will do the baby act just as he did in the Philippines matter and beg for more troops and plead that unlimited blood and treasure should be wasted because he drifted along and got into complications of his own making In the first place. The continental powers are quarreling with each other about their respective spheres of action in China. Russia has the advantage in being on the ground, and she is not the nation to give up an advantage. England, having no white troops to send, is trying to form an alliance with the United States and Japan as against the field. On account of his understanding with Great Britain, McKinley is hurrying all the troops that can be mustered to China. If the Monroe doctrine had not been relegated to the Umbo of oblivion long ago with the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the Republican party would not now be dragging this nation into a war whose end cannot be foreseen. There is plenty to excite apprehension. The Chinese have modern guns and know how to use them. Despite internal dissensions they have thousands of soldiers to every hundred that European nations can furnish. The Chinese are fighting for the preservation of their nation against foreign aggression. The usual sophistries about our “interests” are being put forth in order to furnish an excuse for getting involved in the international quarrel which is about to begin. It may be well to remember that the only trade interests the United States had were given because we approached the Chinese as a peaceful power, having no sympathy with the imperialist designs of foreign powers. The Chinese trouble has served to show the exact situation in the Philippines. The administration has been sending out rose-colored reports for the last six months, stating that the Filipinos were subjugated, and that merely a few “robber bands” remained to be hunted down." Now comes General McArthur's statement that he cannot spare any of our enormous army in the Philippines to march on China, and that he will have to have 100,000 men in order to complete the campaign in the Philippines. This gives the lie to the stories which the administration has been sending out for campaign purposes. The Filipinos are no more conquered than they were eighteen months ago. They are fighting for independence. If 4t had been given them In the first place, along with protection against foreign Interference for a reasonable ime, there need have been no war. It is noticeable that Roosevelt in his rampant and warlike speeches neglects to state what results have attended applied imperialism In the Philippines. The Republicans had the effrontery to assume that they could choofle the campaign issue, and they are much chagrined to find that the people agree with the Democrats that “imperialism is the paramount Issue.” The First Fruit of Imperialism. Sixteen insane soldiers In a darkened emigrant ear passed through Council Bluffs lately. They came from the Philippines, and were going as fast as steam could take them to a living death at the U. S. hospital in the city of Washington. Fine, stalwart fellows they were, at least most of them. They were unshaven and begrimed with dirt from their long journey through the heut and dust of the Alkali deserts, A few were gaunt, and the vacant stare told only too plainly that God’s image had been brought down to the reasonless state of the mere animal creation. A vigilant regular watched and waited on the poor fellows who laughed and jlbbered like apes Inside the darkened cur. Very few wgre above 21 years »ld, and it wrenched the heartstrings to ree some of the young fellows talking io themselves, about “home,” and •mother," and .be "toys and girls" that once grouped themselves In the “old nest,” that they in this world should rev no more forever. Then other* were violent, and to prevent a tragedy their guardians manacled them, and strapped them to a seat, where they moaned like some mad creature In Its agony.

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1900.

The presidential campaign of 1900 is under way. The leaders have been chosen and the lines of battle drawn. William McKinley is primarily a politician. He wears his principles lightly. When he thought silver popular he was a fr ®® silver man. He voted for free coinage along with Bland, when Bryan was a boy at school. Later he said the Democratic party was not doing enough for silver, and told how much more the Republicans would do if they were intrusted with power. In the Republican convention four years ago he was afraid to have the word “gold”’ mentioned. Now he is a partisan of the absolute, unmitigated, single gold standard. In Congress, when he had no offices to distribute, Mr. McKinley was an ardent civil service reformer. He became Governor of Ohio and turned over the helpless lunatics in the insane asylums and the inmates of “b the other State charitable institutions to the tender mercies of the spoilsmen. When he was a candidate for President the first time he promised that he would take “no step backward" in the matter of civil service reform. When he took office he became the first President to take a backward step since the reform s * * ns^tute< l under Arthur, fourteen years before. President McKinley said that we could riever be guilty of criminal aggression, ahd then he began and carried on an unnecessary war in the Philippines. He said that it was oiu\ ♦u * D u dUty ” t 0 th® Porto Ricans free admission to our own markets, and’ then he not ouly accepted but actually forced through Congress a bill levying heavy taxes both ways on Porto Rican trade. All these inconsistencies have a single cause—Mr. McKinley is not his own n, a s H® speaks from the good impulses of his heart and then he does what he is told to do. It is impossible even to imagine William McKinley msking such a stand for his principles against the pressure of party leaders as William J. Bryan has made this week. When we elect McKinley to office, therefore, his words furnish us no clew whatever to his probable course after he gets into power. To know what he is going to do we must know the man who for the time being is “running” him. In this ease it is Mark Hanna. William J. Bryan is the very antithesis of this opponent. No man has hhd more virulent or more unscrupulous ehemies; no man has been more outrageously misrepresented; no man has had his character, opinions and conduct more distorted and caricatured, but in all the whirlpool of detraction that has surged about him nobody has ventured to suggest that Mr. Bryan is owned by anybody but William J. Bryan. He takes orders'from no Hanna. He does not have to call anybody into consultation to.find out what he thinks. ' His convictions, based on his own matured study, are his own property, and when he has once formed them no power on earth can induce him to give them up or modify them or hide them under a mask. The country is coming to know and admire that splendid stubbornness of Mr. Bryan. The Democrats who did not agree with him on the silver question, annoyed as they were with what seemed to them an unnecessary sacrifice of political strength, are beginning to be glad that they have had that revelation of unconquerable, inflexible conviction. While it Is against them on one point, it gives them confidence that upon the other points on which they and the candidate agree they will not be betrayed. They have been looking for a man who would display on the side of the people that same immovable obstinacy that Cleveland displayed on behalf of the privileged classes, and’they have found him. Another term of McKinley, involving the indorsement of the almost unbroken record of bad faith which has characterised nearly nil the acts of his administration, would be about as bad a commentary on popular government as could be imagined. But could not the cause of popular government suffer still more should the party which has taken up the task of reviving the Declaration of Independence and other old-fashioned views of national honor be betrayed by its candidate? In the present crisis signs of surrender by .that candidate to bosses or to moneyed interests, or the exhibition by him of any of the marks of the quitter,” would be very disquieting to many a gold Democrat.What we need in the presidency now above all other things is an honest man —not merely one who is above picking pockets himself, but one whose honesty is aggressive—one who will not tolerate Neelys nnd Rathbones under him or Hannas over him, and whose honesty extends not merely to matters of money but to matters of principle. We know that if William J. Bryan said that anything was our “plain duty” he would shut that steel-trap jaw of bis and keep Congress in session until that duty was performed or the congressional term expired. If an organ told him that this action would cost him three million votes of growers of filler tobacco and “garden sass" he would tell it that the people could elect another President if they chose, but that fifteen million voters would not make him do a thing he thought wrong. That is a comfortable sort of person to lean on in a national crisis.—New York Journal.

ROOSEVELT IS ROASTED.

Willis J. Abbot Flays the Rough Rider Moat Unmercifully. If Democrats were well versed in the vocabulary of invective which Theodore Roosevelt habitually employs they might say of that noisy personage, with perfect justice, that he is a ranter, a quibbler, a charlatan, a demagogue and a liar. Unhappily, the Democratic partydoes not furnish an exact parallel to Talkative Teddy. Religion has his mate in the Rev. Sam Jones. Journalism boasted a true Rooseyelt In the late lamented Brann, of the Iconoclast. Among the middle-of-the-road Populists there’s a fellow named Jo Parker who has a really Rooaeveltlan way of calling all who disagree with him thieves, rogues and traitors. Incidentally it may be noted that the last-named person is a protege of Mark Hanna—a further point of resemblance to Roosevelt. Democracy, however, does not furnish his match. Even its most radical leaders—Altgeld, Tillman and the others whom in 1896 Governor Roosevelt said should be set up against a wall and shot dead—fall so far short of the Rooseveltian standard as to habitually prefer argument to Invective. This Inability to answer the Rough Rider In his own vernacular Is unfortunate. When a man calls a whole party—some 7,000,000 people—traitors, repudiators, copperheads and cowards, mere argument is unsatisfactory. The sober sense of the people must be relied upon to discern that a man so prodigal of hard words for his fellows must be exceedingly anxious to divert attention from bis own character and record. It is, perhaps, Roosevelt’s plan to shift the Issue from himself, his egomania, his surrender to boss rule, his charlatanry and bis Innate brutality to a discussion of the purposes and beliefs of his adversaries. Acting upon Nelson's maxim, “The best defense against an enemy’s fire Is a vigorous use of your own guns,” ho has opened Uu» engagement with a broadside of billingsgate. Nothing quite so repugnant to refined senses has been known since with progress in the art of war the Chinese abandoned the use of stink pots. Is he a charlatan? Read the accounts In his own Chicago organ of the way he uses a battered hat as a sort of theatrical property. Every five minutes he is “tossing his old campaign hat In a corner,” “hunting for his old campaign hat." “waving his old campaign hat," or in some other way making capital out of a relic of cheap and boastful “heroism.’* As yet he has not brandished the pistol with which he killed two Spaniards—bragging lustily aboat it afterwards in a book as no real soldier nor true gentleman ever could. Is he a liar? What of a man who opens a speech by declaring himself one who “has come not as a Republican to speak to Republicans, but as an American to speak to Americans,” and thereupon talks nearly two hours in a bitter attack upon all Democrats and Impassioned eulogy of all Republican politicians? What of a man who can say of the one organized body which Is striving for a world-wide pence, charity and amity, “Our opponents represent all the force* of discontent, malice and envy, formed and formless, vague and concrete?" Is he a demagogue? Read bls speech aad see if ever man put out a more

arrant piece of demagogy. It is shameful demagogy to say that against McKinley are arrayed “the forces of chaotic evil,” to describe honorable opponents as "pandering to the worst and most degraded elements in our national life,” as “willing to purchase party success at no matter what cost of ruin to the nation.” Is it short of demagogy to try to excite the jiassions rather than arouse the reason of your audience? Was there a single appeal to reason in the St. Paul speech ? Not one of a higher sort than this: “They (the Democrats) stand for lawlessness and disorder, for dishonesty nnd dishonor, for license and disaster at home, and cowardly shrinking from duty abroad.” Look about you. reader, and consider whether your Democratic neighbors merit this description. To just which Democratic public men, from William Jennings Bryan down, would you apply it? Roosevelt, with crazy self-as-surance. applies it 6 all. What does the Democratic platform declare the paramount issues of this campaign? Imperialism and militarism. How does Roosevelt meet this? “We cannot argue with them on this proposition because no serious man thinks for one moment that they believe what they assert.” That is an easy way out. If your opponent lays down a proposition which you cannot controvert, say you know he doesn’t mean it and clinch your argument by calling him a traitor or a copperhead. If thia doesn’t convince the nation there always remains the Rooseveltian argument of standing him up against a wall and having him shot. But enough! As some of the sentiments in the St. Paul speech are left over since ’96, ft will doubtless do duty all this campaign. Meantime, I recup to my original theorem, Why let Theodore Roosevelt, a “scholar in politics,” retain his long time monopoly of the use of billnlgsgate? Is ho the only man licensed to use hard words and still be petted by the “better classes?”—Willis J. Abbot, in Chicago American. German* Not Stare 1 by Silver. Although the campaign has hardly opened, it has airCady begun to pro duce some Interesting developments. The situation discloses one fact of Importance, which Is that our Jellow citizens of Teutonic birth are not to be scared or clubbed tjils year with silver. Tlieir lenders declare that the currency question Is too thoroughly settled for the next four years to make ft a present issue. On the other hand, they regard the carpetbag Imperialism of tho administration ami its ownership by and subserviency to the oppressive trusts as vital issues.—Washington Times. Democratic Brand ot Expansion. ’ The Democratic party has never been opposed to any measure of expansion that did not involve either a menace to their own liberties or a violation of the rights of other*, but so far no territory has been acquired with the consent of that party without being, incorporated as an integral part of the domain, dlregtly under the joint control of the throe co-ordinate branches of the Federal government, and nil the people of any region thus acquired have been recognized and treated at citizens of the United Bwtes.—New Or* leans Vlcayuu*. .