The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1889-10-09
we Are Keeping dhe score.

0ther,--- W L. " 1tte0fts
We Are Keeping the score.
We have devoted a good deal of
space to the contrast between the
pledges nude by the Republican
party last year and its performances
this year, and we shall devote a
great deal more space to this same
ideally parallel" We do it in no
small spirit of taunting a man or
party with Inconsistencies, which
are common to all men and parties.
We do it without committing our
selves at all us to the merits of the
original pledges or the practicability
of their fulfiIlment. We did not
build the Republican platform and
we are not responsible for General
Harrison's speeches, whose solemn
stupidities and eloquent platitudes
were received by the entire Repub-
lican party as the sum of all human
wisdom. no political party has
any right to promise that in the
event of its success Mt the polls sun
shine and shower shall follow each
other in ideal order, and when it is
foolish or wicked enough to prom
Use any such thing, it should be
held strictly responsible for all
damage wrought by flood and
drought. 1t is no defense for it to
urge after the election that it has
no control over the weather; it
should have considered that before
the election. fine NATIONAL DEM
ocRAT purposes to keep the people
of the United States in mind from
now until November, 1892, of what
the Republican party promised and
of what it has not accomplished.
The Republican party has no power
to make business prosperous and
to give all the laborers of the coun-
try plenty of work at good wages,
but it promised them this in ex-
change for their votes last year, and
it will not be our fault if the farmers
and the mechanics, and the miners
of this country. forget the terms on
which the votes of large proportions
of the FIRST and third of these classes
were secured by the Republican
party. 1t is no defense now for the
party to say through the New York
Press, the New York Tribune and
other of its newspapers, that there
are conditions wholly independent
of the tariff that make business good
or bad. Last summer and fall were
the time to think of that, but last
summer and fall the Press and the
Tribune, and all their tribe, were as
silent as the grave about any con-
ditions other than the tariff that
made business good or bad.
The campaign that the Republi-
can party carried on last fall was in
a large and national sense the most
corrupt campaign that political
party ever conducted. We do not
refer to the pretty corruption of
fioaters in blocks of five by the cir
culating medium. Even if in cer-
tain close localities results can be-
affected in this way, still the indi-
viduals corrupted are few in num-
Der. Thank God there is but a
small fraction of the tweIve-and-a-
half million voters in this country
whose votes are merely tnerchan-
disc. Unfortunately these few con-
troll many close districts or States,
but their total is not alarming.
The real, vast corruption of the Re-
publican party was in the promises
of public money to certain interests,
class and individuals In exchange
for their votes or their campaign
contributions. 1t was the promise
of pension money to be paid with
out asking questions, of subsidies to
be given to Improbable private en-
terprises, of Treasury rulings in the
interest of this man or that trade,
of public land to every speculative
interest that was barred by the laws.
These are the real corrupt and dan
gerous influences utilized by the
Republicans. Whenever the Re
publican party pays any of these
promised bribes we shall call the
attention of the honest men of the
country to the fact, and whenever
it seeks to. escape payment we shall
direct the attention of It's dupes to
the treatment they have received.
We shall keep this up until the lth
of March, 1893, delivers this coun-
try from an administration of small
good men and large rsseals-
National Democrat.
T The Republicans of New England
are demanding free raw material
and tariff Reduction.