Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 38, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 July 1906 — POLITICAL COMMENT [ARTICLE]

POLITICAL COMMENT

Looking Backward and Forward. There ,are millions of citizens who remember vividly the events of fifty years ago, when the Republican party was born. Trouble was‘in the air. A cloud much larger than a man’s hand was growing along the horizon.' Civil strife carried to its last arbitrament was feared, and yet the hope was general that it would be averted. The most aggressive element was in the South, and a later generation can not realize the cool audacity and taunting words with which it pushed a fixed purpose. Yet the great majority of the people believed that some settlement could be reached short of war. The basis of the Republican party was nationality. Its mission was to sa(e the union of States, to preserve the country whose founders certainly intended that it should be a nation, and not a conditional arrangement that might resolve itself into several nations. In spite of the old charge of sectionalism, the Republican party is the least sectional, the most national, organization the country has ever known. It directed the war to prevent national division. Its policies have been Only where sectional exclusiveness and prejudice prevail is it shut out Let the national spirit enter

such places, and Republican ideas must at once be predominant. The first large experoence of the Republican party was defeat In a national election. It was a contest marked by immense vigor and spirit in a young party, but the scale was turned in favor of the Democrats by a few Northern States that, at a later period, added their strength to the new political force. A few months sufiiced to show that Republicanism was marching on and the sentiment of Southern defiance increased in even greater proportion. At last the flag of the United States was fired on and hauled down at the demand of an enemy. It is needless to describe the tidal wave of wrath that swept over the loyal States. The sense of nationality had been rudely assailed and overborne, the flag humbled, and the property of the country seized. A like provocation to-day would cause a similar thrill of overpowering feeling and demand for vindication. Upon the Republican party fell the duty of piloting the government in its struggle for nationality. It fought rebellious sectionalism in the States to its downfall on the field of battle, add by its principles has ever been true to the cause of the Union, one and indivisible. As. an incident of the war for the Union slavery was swept away. It has since been abolished by all civilized nations. What the United States has become as a national entity can be seen by a glance at the map stretching nearly half way around the earth, and at the summaries of the commerce and wealth of the leading countries. Under Republican guidance the nation was first made the chief united American power, and then a world power. Its national achievements include the homestead law, the protection of American Industries, the transcontinental railroads, expansion, a sound currency, the best credit, and many other features 9 of wise development that the pjeople enjoy in common, and which form the groundwork of their great destiny. The Republican party is in the firstfstages of its career. It sprang Into existence because the conscience of the people was aroused. It represents their conscience now, and will live as long as It is faithful to its origin. Other parties may have conscience, but some have only appetite.—St. Louis Globe-Demo-erat. Waat No Chaa«e. With the life insurance companies, Standard OR Company, the paper trust, the railroads, the drug trust, the meat packers, and dishonest bankers and office holders on the grill, what a bowl will go up about election time for M 1

change!” But it won’t come from the great masses of the common people, who never before in the history of our country were so largely employed, earning such liberal wages in- such short work days, or laying up so plentiful a surplus for the future. A Congress that Has Done Something The session of the American Congress just ended will be notable for the large amount of really important legislation enacted, dealing with vast and complex problems of the day in a constructive spirit. It is a record on which the Republican party may appeal to the country with confidence, because it is a record in whose final outcome in legislation all thinking Americans feel satisfaction. The most satisfactory feature of this record to typical Americans is not so much what was done as the way in which, after much preliminary trlbula,tion, it was done—the bedrock which was revealed in the American Congress of common-sense statesmanship. ; The two leading measures of the session were brought before Congress In spectacular ways which might well have provoked revolt.

The railway rate bill came as a demand for more and even revolutionary laws on the heels of a manifest refusal to enforce existing laws of the same kind against a .flagrant offender. The meat Inspection bill came as a part of an avowedly destructive campaign against a great national Industry; : : Yet first the Senate and then the House refused to fall into either cynical indifference or justifiable though impotent rage because of the methods by which these measures were brought forward. First one and then the other was considered with respect to the actual evils to be cured and their pactical remedies, and without regard to the extravagances of their presentation. In this way verdicts of practical statesmanship were reached. The session of Congress just dosed has in the end and result well represented the sobriety, sanity, fairness of nflnd, and common sense of the American people, and of the record so made they have every reason to be proud.— Chicago Inter Ocean. Mistake Noise for Number*. The Democrats who hope to divide tlie Republican party on the question of the tariff, however, wilt be disillusioned, and not for the first time. There have always been a few tariff reformers and fi*i»-traders who have clung to the Republican party. Like the frogs In tlie old farmer's pond, they have always made a noise entirely disproportionate to numbers. In tendering the tariff issue the Democrats are deemed to the same disappointment that confruited tlie farmer when, afjer having drained the pond at pense in tae firm belief that a fortune awaited h'm from the sale of the frogs which inhabited it, he found the numher dwindled down to a lone half dozen. He learned, as will tlie Democrats, that the noise they make has no real relation to their numbers.—Seattle I’ost-IntelJlgencer. 1.-i-st We Forsret. If every Democratic free-trader or tariff "for revenue only” reformer, and every Republican who talks of reciprocity, etc., will stand and sing: Qh, Lord of Hosts, De with us yet, Lest we forget, Lest we forget. —the free-trade Wilson tariff bill of '93 to ’97, we believe they will feel better. Suppose they try It—Butler (ilo.) Record. J 1 The cheerful man la pre-eminently a useful maa. 1