The weekly register. [volume] (Point Pleasant, Va. [W. Va.]) 1862-1909, 1891-07-08
Lively Times Ahead.

.'~-'S - NS4 y. SS>SAtAuSf fhStE uCttNt
and agreeable Presidential cam
paign in '92.
We can even now hear the pre-
liminary rumblings, the sonorous
and resonant reverberations ola first
class thunder storm which is slowly
coming this way.
Everything indicates n contest
between the two parties which will
be historic for its vehemence, for
each party is getting ready to bury
the other under landslide.
The Republicans are a little over
sanguine in the prophecies which
they make for publication and lit
tie downhearted when they chat
confidc ntiaIly beyond the reach OF
eavesdroppers.
The Democrats watch the drift of
public opinion, which seems to have
set in their direction with the force
of a strong flood tide, and frequently
indulge in an encouraging smile at
what they see.
Both contestants are in training,
and the man who can't see plenty
of fun ahead was born without any
sense of humor.
And, by the way, we shall have a
real, live, vital and collaborating is
sue to fight on. We can dispense
with the eliminating and recrimina-
ting personalities through which we
have heretofore waded waist deep,
and talk about the prosperity of the
country, the wages of the laboring
classes, world market and the
ability of the Yankee to make a
competency if Congress will cease
its handicapping humbggery and
give him fair show. 1t used
to be said that an American could
white fortune out of anything if
he had a jackknife and chance.
The Mckinley bill has robbed him,
however, of both the chance and the
jackkuife, and we are curious to
know what criticism he will make
at the polls year hence.
1t is pretty clear just now that
the republicans must make cam
paign of explanation. They are on
the defensive. Their policies have
been so disastrous that it will take
a good deal of oratory to set them
right. They are perfectly aware of
that fact, and are, therefore, study
ing elocution with ardent zeal.
There are four million farmers in
this country-as hard headed set
of men as ever breathed the breath
of life. For some months past they
have been asking where on earth
that big surplus has gone, and why
we are now brought face to face
with a deficit. They see that some
men can make untold millions in
few years, and that favoring, not to
say corrupt, legislation has helped
them to do it, while the land tiller,
with his magnificent crops, his
steady toll, his honest patriotism, is
rocking the cradle of a mortgage
and anxiously watching as his hard
earnings slip through his fingers
year by year.
He joins an Alliance with the
hope of stopping the mad career of
this money devil and inangnrating
an era of fair play. 1t is easy to
see that he is restless and bound to
effect change.
The twelve million other wage
earners are in the same condition.
Are our laboring classes contented?
Not bit of it. They will engage
in no riots, for that is not their way;
it doesn't run in the blood; but they
want to know why the millennium
which the republicans promised
doesn't come along, and they will say
so at the polling booth. That is
their dynamite, and when it ex-
plodes it knocks things into smith
Green's. They have got beyond bull
lets, but they know how to throw
ballots with deadly aim.
So, then we are to have the high
tariff for the chiefissue. And, oddly
enough, the women will exercise a
great, perhaps a controlling, in.
fiuence in the campaign. We are
not good enough to allow them to
vote, but they know more about
household expenses than the men
do. They are the economical half
of creation, are experts in the
methods of saving for a rainy day.
They see that it costs more to live
than formerly, but that the family
income is no larger. We shall