The weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1878-1881, 1880-10-05
CALIFORNIA AND THE DEMOCRACY

The statement of the Californian who
claims for his state u place in the Hancock
column is only a confirmation OF the report
made by every intelligent observer who has
recently visited the Golden State. All such
reports agree in declaring that California will
go democratic in the November election,
and when we take a calm and unbiased view
of the situation IT seems impossible for us to
arrive at any other conclusion. There are a
great many reasons, and good reasons. why
California should so democratic, but none at
all why it should go republican, with the ex
ceptlon of the one treason" of the money
bags, whose contents will be lavishly en-
ployed by the railroad millionaires and other
vampires to keep in power the party of mo
nopoly. Among the first of the reasons why
the democrats should win a victory in Cali
fornia, this year is the length of the republi-
can tenure in that state. Without undertake
ing to express the why or wherefore, the mere
fact may be stated, and it will be accepted
without challenge, that the longer a party re
mains in power, the more pronounced be-
comes the feeling of irksomeness under its
continued domination, the stronger the desire
of change merely for the sake of change. To
thisw we may add the equally unquestionable
fact that the longer the leading men of a
party are placed prominently before the pub
lie the more flaw are there to be discovered
in the record of each; the more of a fund of
private animosities and personal enmities has
each accumulated. Applying this rule to
California, where the republican party has
been in the ascendant for no less than twenty
years, its last democratic electoral vote hay
ing been cast in favor of j mes Buchanan,
in 1856, we will understand the above men,
toned considerations will act powerfully as
auxiliary to the democratic forces in the CAM
paign now going on.
For other reasons why the state should be
democratic take first the Chinese question.
The Monaghan invasion with which America
is threatened has been experienced by Cali
fornia for long years past. Tit people Of
that state know by bitter experience of the
evils which we can only forecast, and which
in the sman and brother twaddle of the east
are secuted as products of the hoodlum
brain. To obtain relief from that invasion
California turned her eyes toward the ma
tional capital, and wildly describing the evils
from which she suffered, %piteously implored
assistance. In response to this appeal a dem
ocratic congress adopted legislation whose
effect would certainly have been greatly to
reduce, if not entirely to terminate, the curse
of Chinese immigration. From its inception
this legislation was stubbornly resisted by
| tie republicans, its most bitter and relentless
. opponent on the floor of the house be-
= ing James A. Garfield, who is now the
4 republican nominee for president. Finally
= the bill was passed and would have become
: law had it not been for the veto of the repub
lican president, a veto employed in the inter
o ests of the few manufacturers of California
and in direct opposition to the plainly ex
y pressed wishes of the great mass OF the PEG
pie. All this happened less than two year
ago, and now is it natural to expect the big
spirited Californians to forget this little &C
count they have for settlement with the re
J. publican party with regard to that veto, ali
is the republican Chinese policy generally
Then take the tariff. California is principa
~ " an agricultural or mining, but only in
IL decidedly minor degree a manufacture
State. Consequently the nature of its indu
re tries will lead it TO favor the democratic part
{" of free trade rather than the republican parl
~ of protection, under whose rule the vineyard
~ of Los Angeles, the wheat fields of Cont,
Vi Costa, or mines of Sisklyou will all pay tri
ute to the spindles of New England and flu
- naces of Pennsylvania. The question of ia
~ if reform is attaining more and more impo
IN lance in the minds of all thoughtful voter
d and in California it will not be found DIES,
nc tute of influence on the second of Novembe
NC To sum up, there are three great class
III in California who will vote for Hancock Il
lie party of the dissatisfied, the anti Chine
nc nc party, and the free traders. Those thr
ny classes will cut deeply into the independe
VI vote, and this, together with the happily Ill
IL ted front presented by the democracy, is
good as an assurance that the electoral VIC
'"' of California will be democratic. Names e
ee ultlng cry of deliverance, shouted a few da
ee ago from the bleak Atlantic coast, will me
Ell with a responsive echo from the golden she
'P- Of the Pacific.
mis-
sht The practice of betting on elections m
nj MT - opE vary hiuh in the nOralist,s oninjf