The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1891-01-09
DEMOCRATIC SCHEMERS.
The Rivalry for Place Among Selfish
Party Leaders.


A pretty game of tag is going on
among the Democratic Congressman
who are anxious to improve upon the
example of Speaker Reed. So many of
these estimable gentlemen have water
ing mouths agape for the Speakership
sugar plum that it is mournful to con-
slider how many of them will have to
gulp down the honey of expectation
into which has been poured the gall of
disappointment. But the amusing thing
about this eager contest is the studiOus
silence of the contestants. They go
busting around with finger on lips like
Random-thoughted men
Wrapped in the cloudy mantle OF their dreams.
The trouble with them is the rivalry
between Cleveland and Hill. 1t has got
into the convictions of Democrats by
some occult process that the settlement
of the Speakership contest is going to
have bearing upon the Presidential
question. Recognizing the fact that
Cleveland is well to the fore in Demo-
cratic dreams it seems necessary to the
contestants to favor that massive pilot
of the breaker-daring craft, and we
have the interesting but astOnish-
ingly inconsistent spectacle of Free
Trader Mills laboriOusly tossing up his
hat for Tariff Cleveland, to
the sarcastic salaams of David Hill.
Mills, of course, believes that he has
what is called, in the picturesque YER
nacular of his own country, a ''cinch'
on the Speakership, and bases his claim
not alone on his peculiar services in
time past, but upon the assumed right
of the South to dictate who shall fill
the coveted position.
While the latter assumption may be
true, it seems going rather far in the
matter of State supremacy to cram. the
question of Southern privilege inside
the boundaries of Texas, and there are
some very energetic people who have a
notion that Georgia is not altogether
without this sunshine of preferment.
There is yet another faction of the
Democracy, possibly deserving the
term conservative, that thinks the
South is disposed to reach for the lions
share of the spoils, and holds to the not
unreasonable idea that the Northern
Democrats are also in this little game
of tag. There is a strong though not
openly avowed laundering after the
place by men who account themselves
some pumpkins in the Western camp of
the Democracy.
Among them all, therefore, there Is q
very lively and amusing little game
that Republicans are watching with
smiling interest, waiting to see whether
or not Fine-worker-Hil will not con-
trive to get a turn on Cleveland after
all. 1t is likely enough, from the
present status of the case, that Mills
will be the man touched by policy in
this hoity-toity scramble. If so, de-
spite his very ardent expressions of de-
yotion to Cleveland, it may be calculated
with mathematical nicely that the
strongest factor working the combina-
tons in Congress will be rather more
friendly to the nomination of Hill in '92
than to that of Cleveland. Success has
ratified the Democrats, as it always does,
and it is ten to one they will make a
pretty mess of their party interest
through the selfish anxieties of chief
and petty leaders. Let the game go on
Chicago Inter Ocean