Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 87, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 July 1899 — MUD BATTERIES FOR M’KINLEY. [ARTICLE]

MUD BATTERIES FOR M’KINLEY.

Being convinced that President McKinley is to be renominated by the Republican party, the thick and thin organs of Democracy seem to have convinced themselves that the exigencies of the Democratic situation demand that the President be abused. All along the line the mud batteries are being opened up. The St Paul Globe recently signalized its entrance upon this kind of warfare by making an unusually virulent attack upon the Chief Executive. It characterizes the President as the mere complaisant tool of a number of professional politicians. It says that ■no one has thought of him in any other (Character for a year past. It declares ithat no one in national politics has regarded him during that period as having any personal force whatever. Newspapers that talk In this fashion do but proclaim their own desperation. William McKinley is to-day the most popular man in the United States. He is to-day more popular than any other President since Lincoln. The common people, as Lincoln termed the masses, trust him implicitly. Republican newspapers will be but wasting their time in any attempt to answer these systematic denunciations of the chief executive. Their own virulence robs them of all force. They will prove boomerangs, every one of them. “No force in the President,” say these detractors. “No initiative in the White House.” Have these worthies forgotten how the President maintained himself against the united forces of mugwumpery and Democracy, aided by traitorous and disgruntled Republicans, when they were trying to force this country to recognize the paper republic of Guba in order that certain bonds might be vitalized, and the American army and navy put under the direction of the Cuban junta? If so, their memories are exceedingly short. Simply because Mr. McKinley has been a man of quiet methods, he has often been called weak, even by his friends. But there has never been any ground for the charge. He has always stood by his convictions. When his tariff bill and all the principles of protection seemed to be repudiated by the people, he stood courageously by his standard. He did not so much as think of apology. He simply waited for the turn of the tide, conscious that they who attack the right but wound themselves. While it will be disagreeable to have the Democratic press assailing the President without sense or reason, Republicans can afford to be very complacent about it. They cannot harm Mr. McKinley, and their tactics will be a benefit to the Republican party from the standpoint of practical politics.— Cedar Rapids Republican.

Havemeyer on the Trusts. Henry O. Havemeyer, of the sugar trust, is giving some triumph to indiscreet Democratic editors. He is represented to have said that the ‘'true communism of pelf is the customs tariff bill.” He has declared that “the tariff is the mother of the trusts.” All the trusts, he contends, are creatures of tariff legislation. The Democrats who intimate that Havemeyer talks as an expert on this trust business are correct, though in a sense different from what they realize. The sugar trust was allowed by the Democrats to draw up the sugar schedule of the Mills bill—the bill which defeated the Demoracy in 1888. The trust framed the sugar provisions of the Wilson-Gorman act of 1894—the “perfidy and dishonor” tariff, to use Cleveland’s designation for it, the tariff act which Cleveland refused to sign, allowing It to become a law by the expiration of the time limit. Mills, Wilson, Gorman and the rest of the Democratic leaders gave the sugar trust a good many favors, which the trust, it was understood, reciprocated by subscribing handsomely to the Democratic campaign fund in 1888, 1892 and 1896. Havemeyer ought to feel kindly toward the Democratic party. Undoubtedly he does feel that way. He would be glad to give the Democracy a lift at this time, but he is mistaken in supposing that his sort of talk will injure the Republican party. The Republican tariff is not the mother or the father of the trusts. The Republican tariff creates home competition, and thus makes trusts difficult. Trusts are as numerous in England as they are in the United States, and England is supposed to be a free trade country. Trusts are sure to arise under all sorts of a fiscal system, though the Democracy, in the instances mentioned, went, it is true, a little out of their way to give favors to the sugar trust Havemayer is a Democrat, and for very good reasons. He voted for Cleveland in 1888 and 1892 and for Bryan in 189 G, because of the aid which Cleveland’s and Bryan’s party gave him in allowing him to fix up the sugar schedule of Mro tariff bills to suit himself. In call

ing attention, however, to what Havemeyer is saying now against the Republican party the Democrats are unwise. They will revive the recollection of the offensive and defensive alliance between Havemeyer’s combine and the Democratic party in two or three national campaigns, and will provoke an inquiry into the cause of that alliance. —St. Louis Globe Democrat.

A Bogy of the Past. There was such a violence of demand for free silver coinage in 1896, backed by such fervor of oratorical effort to show that the way to industrial recuperation was only along the line of partial repudiation, that thousands of honest men of all parties were swept from their sound money moorings. But since 1896 times have changed. The country has prospered, and a deluge of gold has swept into the markets of the world. Men’s minds have also changed. There has been a popular reaction on the money question similar to that which followed the Democratic excursion into the delusive field of greenbackery in 1868. W’hilst Democratic leaders, with pardonable human weakness, still talk of sticking to the Chicago platform, there is no longer any serious defense of “16 to 1,” nor any serious Intent to make the silver issue the paramount question to be determined in 1900. Even the majority of the members of the Democratic National Committee are no longer rampant. They pass silver by on the other side, and turn their faces toward real issues. They know that the Democratic party is drifting back to the support of the Jeffersonian doctrine of the inviolate preservation of the public faith. Despite the efforts of enthusiasts and theorists and of leaders who conceive their political fortunes to be bound up in keeping the silver issue alive, there is no answering response of the popular pulse. Free coinage has been as effectually sidetracked as the demand for unlimited issues of legal tender paper money. It is a bogy of the past.—Philadelphia Record.

A Wormy Yarn. The yarn about the $50,000,000 campaign fund with which Mark Hanna bought the victory of 1896 is again filling up the columns of the Democratic newspapers. The fact is that the friends of honest money and sound government did respond pretty liberally when the hat was passed at that time and succeeded in accumulating a fund aggregating just $2,900,000. It took $1,000,000 to supply the literature for the “campaign of education” and the balance went for speakers, halls, traveling expenses and the like. It was considered a big fund and It was well expended. The Democratic fairy story about the $50,000,000 sounds particularly humorous to anyone who was ever on the inside of the finances of a national, State or local campaign. There is a good deal of business about politics, and the business instinct gets into the campaign fund quicker than anywhere else. —Sioux City Journal.

In Sore btraits for an I«8ue. When he was in Congress Mr. Bryan was a great advocate of free trade, but had no fault to find with the money system. When he was a candidate for the Presidency he dared not attempt to defend or advocate free trade, In the face of the terrible bungle Democracy had made in tariff legislation from which the country was then suffering. Instead, it was the money system that was all wrong. The people decided that question, as they decided the tariff question, against the Democracy. And now, if he shall be the Democratic candidate next year, Mr. Bryan must perforce abandon hispet theories of 1806 arid whoop it up on a “bust the trusts” cry. Democracy is in sore straits for an issue. It always has been. —Mansfield, Ohio, News. Benson for Circumspection. The Dingley act is no longer referred to by free trade editors as a failure. They are circumspect in treating the subject of revenue or avoid its discussion entirely. The reason why they take this attitude is not difficult to penetrate. They are quiet because they have found out that all their predictions are being falsified by events, and do not wish to draw attention to the fact that the Dingley bill is working very well in practice.—Findlay, Ohio, Jeffersonian. Will It Ever Be Overturned ? If the protection policy Is ever overturned in this country again It will be when a new generation has come up which doesn’t remember the experience of 1893-1896, or when, some time hence, the country has experienced new and radically different Ideas as to how the government should be administered.—Norwalk, Ohio, Reflector. Whether society will countenance a man depends more on ilia figure (|) than bls face.