Western appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1885-18??, 1888-04-28

years proYtu lGSolI tQe LlOSV luuSty ana nOlSOme
depository OF political vacuity and decay to be
found in the world. There are barely enough
live men in the Democratic museum to exhibit
the mummies and take gate money. The public
service runs to-day solely upon the momentum
supplied by Republican force and ideas; and
those in power, though having the desire, have
not the courage to change its course. All they
can do is to ride.
The Democratic party arrived at the White
House without a single sincere conviction it
dared avow. The barbarous ideas which had
once vitalized it for evil had all been consumed
years before in the white heat of the aroused
public sentiment of Christendom-in fact slain
by the rising spirit Of militant Republicanism
Through all the grand years of Republican
progress-the grandest years in American his
tory--aye, the grandest years in human history
the leaders Of the Democratic party sat like
dazed owls upon dry limb of the charred and
blackened trunk of rebellion, and solemnly
hooted that constitutional liberty was beng
destroyed by the Republican party. The great
statesmen and patriots who arose to immor-
tally out Of slavery s decline, and stand to-day
canonized in the grateful memories of u race,
were all, in the active days of their glory, the
targets OF Democratic abuse The politics Of
each successive Democratic campaign consist
ed in taxing back an old falsehood and telling
q new one Even the sweet uses of adversely
seemed lost upon the Democratic managers.
e But we can afford to forgive all the hard
words said OF us by the Democratic party, in
view OF the great admiration attested by their
actions, which speak louder than words. Imi-
tation is the highest possible praise. Through
all the years of Democratic abuse, that party
has been industriously padding out its withered
frame and shrunken shanks, in the vain hope
OF making them fill the Republican pattern,
and, really, it is not their fault if our old
clothes don't fit them. Through the dust and
debris which marks The historic course of Re
publican achievement, the managers of the
Democratic party have craWled slavishly on
their bellies after the advancing Republican
column. They wear no plume to-day they did
not pluck from the tail OF the Republican eagle.
and usually. about the time the bird was ready
to shed.
Searching around in dark political corners
the Democrats at length found in their party
village statesman so obscure as not to be
widely odious. They took this man up and
loudly proclaimed him great savant and
political reformer. True, he had then never
reformed any thing, and has not yet, but there
seems to be a theory that he can. Anthems
were sung over his discovery, in which Mr.
Curtis and Mr.. Schurz carried the alto and
tenor, and the reformers of Tammany fur
nished the heavy bass. This champion of
Democratic reform was altogether too lofty to
become interested in the little questions that
troubled Lincoln and Grant twenty-five years
ttSO. 1uS It1Oful Cdr Was uOU 1EBuQeQ TO near
the guns of Sumpter, or the echoing call of
Father Abraham for g three hundred thousand
more" The eye SO keen for the penny abuses
OF the civil service, could only see the g glory
OF the coming of the Lord y through the me-
dunn of q substitute; and when peace and
freedom blushed over a glad land the heart of
the reformer thrilled strictly by proxyl The
great moral movement of the centuries thun-
dered itself through the hey-day OF Grover
(Jl0Velln0'S yOI1th. and m a6 In. r,jc eli
small things were beneath him. He was, evil
IDENTIFY, waiting for the disabled soldier on
whose scared and shrivelled person he might
illustrate the benefcence of modern Demo
cratic reform.
Impartial history will write 1t down that this
government had never, since Washington's
first inauguration, been more faithfully more
honestly or more efficiently administered than
1t was on the day Arthur passedit over into
the hands of cleveland; and yet a campaign
or the most virulent abuse and falsehood de-
ceived some Republicans into believing there
was corruption in high Places and that the
public good required "a CHANGE
The vain efforts of Mr.. Cleveland to carry
out the false pretense of the campaign and
pose before the world as a great reformer have
been painful in the extreme, and remind one of
nothing so much as a hippopotamus irving to
balance on a slack-rope. His whole administers
ton has been solemnly stupid masquerade
with spoi!s and party greed as its real motive
and Civil-Service reform as its false and dis
honest pretense. Despite the vigilance Of Illi-
nois' own great reformer, Mr.. Oberly, the pub
lie service has been made the battening-gr
OF campaign strikers, where the dirtiest party
service hnds high and sure reward. It was i
believe, member Of the Presidents own party
who said tried Democrats were all right, but he
objected to tried and conUicted Democrats.
Not least of the duties of the next Republican
"a 10 foe
form humbug. The facts are at hand and the
4 fraud under which Democracy came in must
ne exposed. and when exposed the American
neople will lash it from its high places with
whip Of scorpions.
The President, realizing the thinness Of the
ice beneath the Democratic reformatory has
lately made feint in the direction of the sur
plus and the tariff. One naturally asks, in view
OF his present alarm, why he did not mention
the subject sooner. Emerging from the fog Of
his own turgid rhetoric, to make his first intel
l1glDle utterance on any question of National
Importance, Mr.. Cleveland proves himself the
sworn enemy, not of the Inequalities of the
present tariff, but the enemy of the principle
4 OF protection. The Republican party long ago
set the example OF revising the tariff, and may
4 be relied on TO correct all its present and its
future inequalities. But there is one thing the
American people will never allow. They will
never permit the men who can only view the
tarlH from the cupola OF an English factory,
3hrough the free trade goggles of Richard Cob
den, men to whom American soup tastes bet
ter out OF English spoons, and who think this
country should conffne its manufacture to split
ting rails and half-soling boots; the people, L
say, will never allow such men to lay their UNI
holy, unwaShed and ignorant hands upon the
citadel OF American industry.
The Democrats are rapidly preparing the
trap doors in the political bridge through
which, on next November, they will fall for
ever. a commonwealth larger in population
and wealth than Virginia was, in 1890, filed
with intelligence and wealth, and all the best
elements OF Northern progress, knocking
vainly at our Northern door for six years, has
been denied Statehood for the crime Of beng
Republican. At the same time. by the avowed
contamination of the most enormous unpun-s
ished constitutional crime Of the age, forty
men, all accomplices In the act, Sit in Con-
gress upon the basis OF a disfranchised con-
stftuency, and vote that Dakota must STAY out.
Under color Of a forced Interpretation OF the
words OF treaty, the plainest commercial
rights are with circumstances OF studied out
rage, denied American fishermen by petty
British province, and q nerveless and pusi llani-
NOUS State Department lifts no hand to aid
them or to vindicate American honor.
Can the downfall OF party Responsible for
such outrages, be doubtful before an intelligent
public? The reform mask Is already worn out
and disci0ses the hideous features. The people
demand the substance and not the hitting