Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1888-07-18
THE GRANGER STATES.
Their Influence i'm the Late Convent
Practically Nothing

Their Influence i'm the Late Convention
Practically Nothing.
The influence of the Northwestern States
in the Republican convention, which has
just adjourned, was practically nothing.
Party machinery in Illinois, Iowa, Min
nesota, Wisconsin and Michigan may be in
the hands of the war takers and monop-
oists- but among the people of these States,
without reference to party, there is a we'll
| grounded hostility TO protective tariffs and
the long line of evils growing out Of them.
This sentiment, says the Chicago Herald,
was stified and ignored in the convention.
The representatives of these States failed
to make the slightest impression on the
| platform, and such candidates as they pre-
sented were ruthlessly thrust aside. In 1880
Roscoe Conkling sneeringly exclaimed that
"anybody could carry Michigan" 1t is
now the belief of the Republican managers
that "almost anybody can carry the
Granger States.'
The Chicago platform and candidates
were accepted without reference to the
great Northwest or its interests. Its rep
resentatives failed to speak for it Their
cowardice or their treachery was absolute
ly without parallel in the history of Amer
lean politics. Where was Iowa when that
iron masters free-whisky platform was
rammed down the throats of the delegatesl
| Where was Michigan when a man, speak
| ing only for trusts and combines, read the
words " free whisky rather than free.wooll"
! Where were Wisconsin and Minnesota and
Nebraska when it was impudently pro-
posed TO retain every farthing of the war
tax on the necessaries of life whether agri-
culture groaned aloud or not Were the
so-called representatives of these great
/ States in a mood to thank God that they
have a country to betrayl Were they
ashamed to stand out in the broad daylight
as men who had a right to speak for the
grangers!
The convention was presided over in it's
/ temporary organization by the attorney and
chief lobbyist for the Union Pacific road
To it came as hopeful candidates Chauncey
NJ. Depew and William Walter Phelps. On
its benches sat as delegates scores of men
who are in politics solely for the purpose of
defending what they have unjustly seized
as their own. Without an impulse above
self-interest and the pocket, this crowd ig-
nored the section for which they hope for
ever to plunder, and while secretly cursing
the granger" sentiment which forbade
the nomination of Blaine or a Depew it
thrust upon the West a ticket and a plat
form devised solely for the qualification of
the interests at the East, which thrive on
the taxes wrongfully exacted from the
West.
1t is especially discreditable to the States
OF the Northwest that in all their delega-
tions there was not one Daniel with the
wisdom and the courage to interpret for
these modern Belshazzars the writing on
the wall. "Granger" Republicanism will
not be SO mean a thing in the estimation of
the Depews, the Elkinses and the Phelpses
when it finds a voice to give utterance to the
honest aspirations of the masses. Dumb
through its representatives in the Chicago
convention, there is yet time for it to speak