The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1890-12-05
REPUBLICANS rs. THE PEOPLE.

The republicans talk about the Nc
hinley law being uncondemned be-
cause not yet tried, and about the
election of November being an ac-
eident instead of deliberate and
overwhelming expression of public
sentiment, is rather an exceptional
piece of idiocy. Two years ago the
Mills bill was not a law and could not
become law while tile senate was re-
publican. and yet the republicans
treated their victory in November as a
complete and decisive rejection of
tariff reform; they have insisted that
the public sense was then taken on
the subject of tariff reduction, and
congress must accept the vote of 1888
as an instruction from the people.
This year, however, the Mckinley bill
is no EaTTen ideality; it is no party
platform like the Mills bills 1t is Il
real thing, complete on the statute
book, operative in every custom house,
every manufacturing establishment,
and every retail store in the United
States, and the foolish republicans are
pretending that the election of Nov
ember 4 was not an expl ession of
opinion on the new law; it was the re-
suit of local interests and personal
quarrels and all sorts of other things.
Fhe contempt o, the republicans
leaders for public sentiment is shown
in another way. In lSSS the election
gave the republicans 9 majority of
three in the house of represe entatiVcs.
Y majority OF three i'll a house of 325
proves nothing except that public
sentiment is very evenly divided. The
republican leaders, however, treated
this accidental majority, this victory
by mere scratch, as an unlimited
power of attorney from the people;
they trampled on the rights OF the
minority; they overturned the pGrlia-
mentary precedents of century, they
squandered money right and left, they
increased the tariff taxes and promised
to pay bounties, and they undertook
to substitute federal for state control
of all the elections in the country. If
there had been no democratic party at
all they couldn't have wallowed in
power with more abandon, all because
IN November, 1888, they elected three
more representatives than the demo
Gratis did.
But now that a diggusted and out
ragged public sentiment has elected a
larger democratic majority than the
present democratic membership of the
house. the republicans are unable to
discover that the country has spoken.
They talk about the representatives
just SASCICA ny Siic pCOpsS sS IL NiASy
were usuFpeIs who were about TO cap
ture power by brute force; they talk
about the necessity of doing this, that
and the other thing before She. new
congress gets into power, as if the new
congress, chosen by the people OF the
United States, with an approach to
unanimitY never before seen, were a
foreign army about to invade our bOr-
C+ers:
The republican instinct is true one;
the republicans are not the people;
they are faction hostile to the peo-
pie; they think great deal of the peo-
pie when the people help them acci-
dentally into power, but when the
people dislOdge them they uncover
their hostility to the people and reveal
the contempt and animosity they feel
for them.
But the more rec&lessly the republi-
cans OF the house defy public senti-
nent beuween now and March 4, 1891
the more certainly viii the people do
in 1892 what they did in 1S9O.-Na-
tioRaL Democrat.