Rensselaer Republican, Volume 25, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1893 — Concerning Simplicity. [ARTICLE]

Concerning Simplicity.

After to-day the cant of Democratic simplicity should cease. Ostentation has put on her grandest robes, her costliest diamonds, and has spoken in her coarsest voice in welcome of the Democratic President. The inauguration ceremonies have all the pomp, if not the dignity, of a British coronation. The questions arise: Who is doing all this? Who is paying 4ho bills? Why are certain persons doing this? Why are they paying the bills? The questions are irrepressible; circumstances force them to the front.

It certainly is not the President and the Vice President who are paying, not on ly for the most costly rooms in the most costly hotels of Washington, but also for new and costly furniture with which toTurnish them for official occupancy during the forty-eight hours that precede the inauguration, nor for this only, but also for special trains with cars into which the foot of the plain citizen never enters, cars hung with the choicest tapestries, and inlaid with the rarest woods, designed for use only by the multifold millionaires, who control great corporations; not for these only, but also for the rent of rooms, the services oL. bands, the meats and wines that are served as refreshments, and the hundred other incidental expenses of the inauguration ball. The aggregative cost of these is far beyond the purses of the President and Vice President. Who is doing these things? Who is paying the bills? The campaign of 1892 was waged by the Democrats in the names of economy and of retrenchment and of opposition to the encroachments of the power of corporations. It is true that the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, though born in humble surroundings, had made his bed with the rich during many years. His associates were rich men, his business was derived from rich men, he had been made comparatively rich by use of the advice and opportunities given to him by very rich men. Never had he done or said anything that showed sympathy with the conditions of labor, his private life had not been marked by that simplicity which characterized the daily existence of Lincoln, of Garfield, of Hayes, of Harrison, prior to their elevation to the Presidency. If it had been—as perhaps it was —a matter of special anxiety to the managers of the Democratic party to nominate a man peculiarly acceptable to the millionaires of Wall street, a better selection than that of Mr. Cleveland could not have been made.

And, now that his nomination has culminated in his election, his inauguration is celebrated with a pomp and cost that would have been disgustingly profligate to the eyes of Jefferson or Jackson, and that certainly would have been incongruous with the negligent grandeur of the character of Lincoln. Who is doing this? Who is paying for it? Something, of course, je being paid by the office-hpxflers, but the small contributions of this small fry of and clerks, and postmasters are inadequate to the cost onto-day’s ceremonies. The “hated railway mo-

nopolies” and the . “oppressive millionaires” have lent their most gorgeous private cars, and have drawn large checks on their bankers. It is not the people who earn a few hundreds, or yet a few thousands, a year that are “doing this,” or paying for having it done. Is it not time that both parties should work toward a reform in the vulgar extravagance of inauguration ceremonies? It would be ridiculous to attempt a return to the very primitive simplicity of Jefferson’s or of Jackson’s inauguration, but a simple procession of the great officers of state and of a few military companies as escorts to the outgoing and incoming Presidents might be sufficient. Surely the spectacle of two elderly gentlemen, one of whom is about to be, and one of whom is about to cease to be, President of these United States in a carriage drawn by four black horses with white trappings, each horse led by white liveried footmen is more fitting to a circus than to a National ceremony. The inauguration of a President of the greatest Republic of the world should be more Like the cerulean arch, we see, Majestic in its own simplicity than like to the mummery of a Lord Mayor of London's show.— Inter Ocean.