Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-03-19
The Chronicle ON side-shows.


Our esteemed contemporary, the
San Francisco Chronicle, is disturbe d
in mind to an alarming degree by pc
litical side-shows. The fact that
there were four tickets in the field in
Oakland at the recent municipal
election is gall and bitterness to our
metropolitan neighbor. The American
candidate polled s56 votes, and the
Prohibition fellow got &c votes. The
Chronicle maintains that there is no
sense or use in running such tickets
in local elections. Ii is held that the
Mayor of Oakland is not in a position
to further the "know-nothing" prin-
ciples of one of the side-shows, nor to
uphold the policy of the other-the
cold-water party. That is all true
enough; but such line of
reasening proves too much. The
same course OF reasoning would
rule the Chronicle's party clean out
of the field in local campaigns. For
instance, what sort of figure would
the CORY garment cut in the election of
an alderman, whose duties would be
to provide sewers and streets for the
San Francisco. dormitory? How
would it sound to hear some one
"whoop her up'' On the high tariff
proposition while advocating the elec-
ton of tax-collector for the city Of
Sacramento We fail to catch the
significance of our esteemed
contemporaries plea that the
American party has no right
to exist for the reason that
its existence argues that "major-
tiles are always wrong, and that the
only salvation for the country is to let
a virtuous minority rule" We do
not see how that follows. The
American party only thinks that the
present parties in the majority are
wrong, but that when it gets into
the majority it will be right By the
Chronicles method of reasoning the
Republican party could never have
got into power or even into existence.
But here is sentiment in which we
most heartily concur with our neigh
bor At the Bay City:
So, too, with the Prohibitionists.
They get that drunken freeman is
infinitely better than a sober slave (;
that it is dangerous to the liberties of
q people to encourage sentiment OF
close and CALLING legal environment; ;
and that the liquor traffic, evil though
it may be- and attended by countless
instances of misery and degradation,
is not SO bad for the people at large
as would be the tyranny Of domestic
inquisition and domiciliafy visitations
which prohibitory laws would entail.
They, too, would substitute the rule
of the minority for that Of the major
ity, thus oyerturning the whole theory
Of American institutions.
We do not question the right Of the
Prohibition party to exist, and to
maintain it's party org snization just as
our own party, and as the Republican
party does, in local as well as in gen.
eral campaigns. 1t will be difficult to
discover any principle usually ac-
cepted as American which will forbid
any party to exist, to organize, to put
tickets in the field, and do all other
acts common to political parties.
And this reaches the reality under
lying this matter. The American
party and the Prohibition party exist
because the Republican party has
been false to it's principles, and
pledges. In its earlier days
Il posed as the great reformer OF all
wrongs. To it's camp, as to verit-
able cave Of Addullam, fiocked all
sorts Of discontented elements. All
doctrinaires, cranks. theorists and po-
Iitical bankrupts, revolutionists and
uondescripts Of every name and des-
cription, attached Themselves to the
nav party. II was by an aggrega-
tlna ~ Ill these minorities that the
neuublican majority was built mp.
1zcV many of these reforms has the
= 49,, - = = ~oSrfed ant 3 How