Los Angeles daily herald., 1889-05-29
WEDNES MAY go, 1859.


WEDNESDAY, MAI Eos heo0s
Some Democratic Plain Speaking.
A great and unexpected defeat gives
the Democratic party capital opportuni-
ty to return to the old broad-gauge states
manship which signalized that organiza-
ton in the days of its almost immemo-
rial ascendancy. The Democratic party
was beaten in the last election, notwith-
standing the fact that the country was
overwhelmingly Democratic in senti-
ment. If Mr.. Cleveland had shown a
little more judgment in his message on
the assembling of Congress in 1887, he
would have had ee-fourths of the
votes of the Electoral College, and ma
jority of the popular vote 80 great as to
recall that OF General Jackson, in 1928.
Occasionally it would look as if some-
body ought to write an article, and cir
culate it universally, upon the suppress
sion of intelligence in the Democratic
party. To-day the same men who
induced Mr.. Cleveland to write his
unnecessary message Of 1SS7-a message
which, if written at all, ought to have been
written in 1885, and which ought to have
been seconded by Northern men in Con-
gress-are grooming Mr.. Cleveland for
President in 1892.
In his acceptance OF the Democratic
nomination for President in 1884,
Mr.. Cleveland drew powerful picture of
the evils of system in which a President
in office should GEEK to be his own sue
SCISSOR. He seemed to be thoroughly i'm
bued with what is not, in our opinion, 8
sound principle. Dismissing such i'm
mature-shall We say tyro-statesmen as
MIR. Cleveland, we are quite content to
accept the standard set by Washington,
Jefferson, Madison. Monroe and Lincoln,
We would have added the name OF
Grant, but that that good soldier and
poor statesman made an abortive effort
to break the rule which limits the occu'
pancy of the Presidency of the United
States to two terms, however illustrious
the aspirant.
However, Mr. Cleveland went zone
U6LltT buc bNO UCI III pIOPOoipAOis AAS
was little bigger man than old Wash
ington, Jefferson and the whole illus
trious tribe who we're not content with
one term. If he had been sincere in his
somewhat turgid and expansive profes-
sions, the Democratic party would still
enjoy the usufruct of the national
offices, together with the far higher
privilege of debating the foreign and
domestic policy of the premier nation of
the globe. But when Mr.. Cleve-
land wrote his honeyed sentence
about a single term, he doubtless
had in mind the aphorism OF Repub-
lican politician of California, viz, that
platforms and the professions of candi-
dates were simply "molasses spread to
catch flies" From the time he wrote
his disclaimer of second term, Mr..
Cleveland probably devoted every
energy of his being to securing notn-
ination for second term. He secured
it, with what results the historian will
depict with the lights cast upon the mel
ancholy event by history. The Demo
cratic office-hoder needs none of that
somher perspective, nor is ne particularly
interested in the chiaro oscuro lights of
intervention, to satisfy him Of his misery.
From the day that Mr.. Cleveland left
the White House his actions are liable to
the imputation that he is again seeking
the Democratic nomination for President.
The HERALD yields to no journal or man
in admiration of his many sterling public
virtues, but we cannot withhold our be.
lief that with regard to his attitude to
the presidency he has not been sincere.
He has unfortunately adopted one of the
few bad lines of advice suggested by
Polonius to Laertes, and has sought, by
"indirections to find directions out"
The banquet rendered to him in New
York the other night was really the cul-
minatlon OF a series Of movements to
keep him in training for the Presidency
in 1892.
The matter invites historical retro
spect. No man who has ever occupied
the Presidency, and aetired to private
life, one term intervening, has ever
been nominated TO that exalted Office
with two exceptions. The first was that
of Martin Van Buren,, who ran for Presi-
dent in 1S4s, confessedly to beat Lewis
Cass, the Regular Democratic candidate.
The calculation was that Van Buren,
would carry enough Democratic votes in
his own State 10 throw that State to the
Whigs, and it was realized perfectly. Van
Buren, had been the Democratic candi-
date for a second term, and was beaten
by Harrison. In 1S48 he represented the
Free Soil Democracy. The other excep'
ton was in 1856, when Millard Fillmore,
who had filled the Office OF President
through the death OF General Taylor, was
nominated for President by the Know
Nothings, insuring the election cf
Buchanan, Democrat.
Certainly there is nothing in the facts