Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1891-07-30
M'KINLEY WORSHIP.
A Striking Instance of Islamism In Amer
lean Politics.

lean Politics.
To people who are outside of the re-
publican party, and are in no danger OF
being compromised by the result, the
steady extension of what may be called
Mckinley worship in that party Is a
matter of int resting study not devoid
of a certain irreverent amusement.
There has been nothing like it in mod
ern times except the movement that
produced the ghost dances of the past
winter among the northwestern Sioux.
Perhaps it is of some significance that
this peculiar form of superstition gains
a foothold among parties and races in
which the intellectual and moral forces
are rudimentary either from arrested
development or from degeneration ow-
ing to persistent nonuse. At certain
stage in the upward or downward
course of the human mind the tendency
TO see in some actual or imaginary per-
son the embodiment of the qualities
needed to bring about either salvation
from threatened evils or restoration to
lost states of satisfied wants and desires
is very strong, and when this tendency
manifests itself among large numbers
of persons of fairly equal intelligence,
or unintelligence, of excitable tempera-
ment, and of strong and common preiu-
dices, it frequently gives rise to the
most extravagant and grotesque prac-
tees and to the most disproportioned
and unbalanced ideas. And it is often
characteristic of this form of delusion
that the person clothed with these pro-
foundry trusted and admired attributes
is in reality very commonplace and
even ridiculous.
In the case of the aborigines whose
conception of an American system"
extends not only to the monopoly of
the homo market in game and scalps,
but to the exclusion from America and
from human existence of all whose an
cestors were foreign to this country be-
fore the seventeenth century, it will be
noted that the object of their worship
is described as nothing more nor less
than half-idiotic, half-insane red man
with brain just of the proper capacity
to shut out any but strictly red-Ameri-
can ideas. In the case of our republic
an fellow-citizens, the representative
of the pOliticO-meSsianic notion is Mr..
Mckinley, fondly termed by his de-
voted followers "Bill'' Mckinley, which
appellation seems to them happily to
link the author to his work, the McKin-
ley bill. Judged by the standards of
ordinary criticism of political ability,
Mr.. Mckinley is the last person who
would seem to be fitted to excite enthu-
siasm amounting to real or apparent
alteration. His career previous to the
Fiftyfirst congress was, if not entirely
obscure, certainly not eminent or even
conspicuous. He worked along in the
house of representatives with neither
more nor less of distinction than falls to
the lot of score of country members.
But in that congress, partly by chance
and partly from lack of any better ma
terial, Mr. Reed made him chairman of
the ways and means committee, and it
became his fortune to link his name
with the measure that embodied the
modern repu blican idea of protection
that was made the great issue in the
elections of last year and that was in
dignantly and overwhelmingly con-
demned by the American people. Not
only was his name linked with this mo-
mentous measure. but he was in reality
more responsible for its provisions than
anyone else The negotiations by
which the bill was framed to deal out
favcrs where they would bring the
highest price were naturally not such
as could be trusted to many agents.
Mckinley took charge Of them, and
there was not in the bill when it went
to the senate a single shady job that
had not passed through his hands.
1t might have been thought that
when this amazing measure had done
its fatal work and buried the repub-
lican majority in the house the party
would have dropped its author and
back to the power from which it had
been so mercilesslv swept. But the
chief difficulty in this line was that
there is nothing in modern republican
ism but protection and nothing in mod
ern protection but McKinleyism. 1t is
Islamism in politics. There is no god
but Protection. and Mckinley is his
prophet. So when the doubly-defeated
leader recovered from his amazement
at the outcome of his labors, he found
the leaders of his party more be-
wildered than he had been, and he
straiChtwav started the cry that time
would justify him and his policy. The
party press. sorely at loss for any,
thing to say, took up the cry. The
puzzled readers took it from the press,
and almost before they knew it the
Kinley on everyone's lips and McKin-
lex himself audibly protesting all over
60 country that he was the Heaven
selected leader of republicans. It is
uncomfortable that the men in the high
places of the party. Mr.. Harrison. Mr..
Blaine. Mr.. Reed. Mr.. Sherman. and so
on, do not understand the absurdity of
this curious enthusiasm for Mckinley,
this persistent hailing as a savior the
man who more than anyone else TUNED
the party. But they cannot help them
selves. They have nothing and nobody
better to offer. They have neither the
wisdom nor the boldness to change the
course of the party. And so Mckinley
traverses the country addressing re-
publican meetings and clubs, firing the
hearts of the local chiefs with after
dinner eloquence, and received every
where by the despairing partisans with
political ghost dances and all the
excitement that fanaticism and igno-
rance can produce. But now that he is
running for governor of Ohio, the
voters will meet him at the polls quite
free from this Fictitious influence. and
it will be found that the march of civ
ilizatiOn is not yet to be arrested, and