Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 75, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 May 1904 — POLITICAL COMMENT. [ARTICLE]

POLITICAL COMMENT.

Vcry Easy to Forget. Due appreciation of the Importance of the issue to be decided in the campaign of 1904 was in the annual address of William A. Smyth, of the Owego Times, as president of the New York State Republican Editorial Association, at the meeting of April 13. Rightly President Smyth admonishes his brother editors of the grave and far-reaching consequence of the questions to be decided this year; rightly he warns them that Republican editors of the State must be prepared to do their share of the fighting if we are to keep in power “the party of protection, honest money and prosperous times.” There is no question of honest money involved iu this year’s struggle. The Democratic party will not overload itself to the sinking point with any “16 to 1” foo'ishness. That issue is dead, forever dead. But the issue that is alive to-day, as much alive as at any previous pferibd in the country’s history, is protection and prosperous times. In his address President Smyth said: “This year, the fifty-fourth antjl versary of the founding of the Republican party, promises to lie a memorable one. During the past year, an off year in polities, there has teen but

little work for this association to do. We are now on the threshold of a very Important campaign, and probably none that have preceded it have been so important and far-reaching to the American people as this promises to be. “You can always trust the Democratic party to have a ‘paramount’ issue. - When this association was formed the Democratic issue was free trade, eight years ago it was free silver, and four years ago militarism and imperialism, with free silver as a side issue. This year the paramount Issue has not been sharpi.v defined as yet, but you can rest assiired that our Democratic friends will have one. “It looks now as if the brunt of the fight will be in the State of New York; that the two opposing candidates will be sons of the Empire State, and that we are to meet a united Democracy, though not united on principle, but simply for the spoils of office. It will bo no easy campaign; the battle will be fast and furious, and the Republican editors of this State will have to do their share of the fighting. The voters, especially those in the country districts, will have to be educated and aroused to the necessity of keeping the grand old party In power, the party of protection, honest money and prosperous times. Our people forget easily. Many of them have already forgotten the condition in which the Republican party found the country seven years ago, when they returned to power. Soup houses were popular, then, but they soon gave way to the march of good times. The merchant, the farmer, the manufacturer, took on new courage; the closed manufactories were opened and running on full time; the promises of the martyred McKinley were quickly fulfilled, and prosperity was again an actuality.” True It Is that "our people forget easily.” They forget alike the cause of those ills and the means whereby escape was made possible. Republican editors, not alone in New York, but in all the States of the Union, are exceedingly prone to forget. Whit wonder, then, that their readers should forget? How many of the members of the New York State Republican Editorial Association are blameless In this regard? How many of them have in

the past four years, for example, steadily, persistently, faithfully kept in the plain view of their readers the principles, the facts, the conditions, the underlying causes of our prosperous times? How many have constantly made plain the reasons for our prosperity and the dangers attendant upon any departure from safe, sound Republican policies? Not ten per cent, we venture to say. They have had other things to think of, and they have thought and written of other things far more than they have thought or written about the elements and causes of prosperous times. “Our people forget easily.” Undoubtedly they do. They forget “between elections,” because they are permitted to. forget. It is up to Republican editors to remember all the time, and not merely for a short three months once in every four years. If they will do this our people will not so easily forget, and disastrous lapses of memory like that‘of 1892 will not be so liable to occur. Hearst as a Statesman. The New York Sun has taken the pains to collate from the files of the Congressional Record the history of Mr. Hearst’s parliamentary career for the five months he .has been a member

of the House of Representatives. The result is tabulated as follows; Speeches -delivered 0 Ircidental remarks 0 Motions and points of 0rder...!.... 0 Reports made 0 Petitions and papers presented..... 0 Resolutions introduced 1 Bills introduced 5 Yea or nay votes 0 The record is very strong in a negative sense. Even the bills introduced by the Yellow Kid were not prepared with any expectation of their enactment into law, but simply to give the Hearst papers something to shout over, and deceive people into supposing that he really possesses some qualifications as a statesman. His candidacy for the Democratic Presidential nomination Is simply an offer to pay money for it. Mr. Hearst evidently has read somewhere the story of the Roman legions selling the imperial purple to the highest bidder, and is emulous to have his tory repeat itself.

Bryan Is Not Consistent. Mr. Bryan is constantly arguing that the Democratic National Convention shall not nominate for the Presidency anyone who did not support the party ticket in 1896 and 190 Q. Why not go back four years more, and include 1892? To take in that would give Mr. Bryan an excellent opportunity to explain why ho bolted the Democratic ticket, and voted for General Weaver, the Populist candidate, instead of for Mr. Cleveland. It would be interesting to know his real reasons for his course. It is very doubtful if he was animated by anything but personal hatred of the candidate. But why should a man who refused to support the nominee in 1892 be so strenuous In opposition tb those who pursued the same course regarding the candidate of 1896 and 19CO?

A Lowon Learned. The Democratic party is preparing to fall back on the tariff issue. It worked in 1892, but the country remembers the four years from 1893 to 1897, and if the Democratic party proposes to repeat the experiment of tariff revision the voters will not again be misled. Experience Is a dear teacher, but a lesson learned by experience is not soon forgotten.—Tacoma Ledger.