Abilene weekly reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1888-1935, 1888-07-05
THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE.
WHY 1t Is Bound to Result in Victory for
the Republican Party.

THE IMPENDING STRUGGLE.
Why 1t Is Bound to Result in Victory for
the Republican Party.
The campaign of 1888 will be dis
cussion of public affairs from stand
point advantageous to the Republican
party. In the last Presidential contest
the party in power, because in power,
was necessarily on the defensive. Its
colors were protected and its respon-
sive ammunition was fired from be-
hind intrenchments. The attacking
party that scrambled over the barri-
cade with a howl of hunger were
urged by leaders who frenzied their
followers with visions OF lucre and loot,
The spotless brigade of the mugwump
battery, from its recently raised earth
work, fired its newly-polished civil
service gun on the camp from which it
was stolen. Subterreanean mine, mer-
CHESS attack and open treachery hauled
down the flag OF that great organiza-
ton that out of the Shiny dirt of a
doubtful credit raised the perfect flower
of financial honor and braided its bios
SONS with the laurel worn and victori-
ously won by its successful resistance
to the severance of the Republic.
The official environments of the Re-
publican party have been leveled for
three years, and its archives opened to
inspection. The veterans have filed
out. The eager light of glaring and
yet microscopic scrutiny has been
turned on. The books have been
opened and scanned; every possible
spot has been explored. Anxious po-
litical bounding, spurred by hope and
stimulated by reward, has nosed along
every crevice of suspicion. The public
servants whom envy and greed branded
as rascals to be turned out" are by
verdict OF their accusers shown to be
honest men. No extravaganza discov-
cred, no dishonesty found, no dollar
lost, no service neglected. The Treas
ury, emptied by the heedlessness and
larceny of the last Democratic Admin
istration, was found filled, and over
flowing, to hand over the next. The
great stink-pot cartridge of falsehood
and calumny, intended to suffocate the
Republican party to extinction, burst
and spattered its own projectors. Even
the Civil-Service gun, manned and
manipulated with kid-glove delicacy,
kicked with more vitality in its breach
than in its muZzlle.
The arrangement against the Admin
istration in occupancy is this: 1t is no
longer Democratic party. One after
another the sportive denizens of that
political sea have been chewed and
swallowed, and have added nutrition to
the executive mammalia. All those
audacious or imprudent enough to
sport with the Presidential complacency
are doomed to mastication, and the
school is distinguished and large that
is forced into his NAV with a menace
or a veto, to further reinforce and fat
ten his political girth. Cleveland has
cajoled and spurned the reformers
whose bent backs he used for his step
ping. stone Vetoing with a sheer pen
sion bills to save soldier from an aims
house, he nevertheless truckled to the
South with his order to return the rebel
flags. The loyal protest stung him, not
with regret, but with dismay, and he
cowardly shuffied his propitiatory pur-
pose to the shoulders of a subordi-
nate. Facilitating with vanity, or
stirred by love of power, he
wiped off his bulletin board his
early platitudes on the danger to good
government Of the sOlicitous seeking OF
a second term, and demanded renom-
nation. Pessimist or hypocritical, he
has prostituted the public service to
personal rather than party ends, and
yet parades with a Picksniffian air of
virtue. He has alienated a large por-
ton of the Democracy by his English
subserviency in the proposed fishery
treaty; yet with an autocratic assump-
ton of power, against the expressed
enactment of Democratic House and
a Republican Senate, obstinately pro-
jects negotiations distasteful and hui
initiating to the American people.
Above all, finding the indictment OF
dishonesty against the Republican party
improved and untrue, to attain fictitious
conspicuousness before the country, to
retain his seat, he launched the issue
of free trade, preferring rather than
lose it to paralyze our industries, and
as far as possible relegate the United
States to a colonial position. The Dem
ocratic party is paralyzed. 1t sleeps
in trance, and Grover Cleveland, as
its regent. reions in its stead.-JMdQe.