The Sedalia weekly bazoo. [volume] (Sedalia, Mo.) 187?-1904, 1892-10-04
TO THE POINT.
Josiah Quincy on the Letter Of
Mr.. Harrison.

The republican campaign text book
for 1892 is a production thoroughly
characteristic of the present aims and
methods of that party.
Like President Harrison's letter OF
acceptance, which occupies seventeen
pages of the book, it is throug hOut
merely bid for votes. The effort
has apparently been to throw together
all the speciOus arguments and par
tisan misrepresentation of the repub-
lican party is now making use. As a
full collection of points of this char
acter the book is a success, but as a
serious contribution to campaign of
education it will be generally consid-
cred a failure. Its whole tone is I'M
nalistic. Newspaper headings and
subheads are given to the various ar
) ticles and capitals are everywhere
sprinkled in with liberal hand.
The quotation from President Har-
rison's letter of acceptance printed
upon the back cover is characteristic
Of the spirit in which the whole work
has been compiled. The passage in
which the president makes a most pal
rable and unidentified bid for votes by
asking the veteran soldiers of the war
to remember that he was their COM
rade in 1865 and is land is not less a
comrade now" is selected apparently
as the most typical and conspicuous
utterance of the letter, but perhaps on
the whole it is.
Most of the topics touched upon
are handled so briefly that there is no
room for their adequate presentation,
even if the disposition to argue the
case from the standpoint of reason did
not seem to be wanting.
1t would take another book of the
same size as the republican text book
to expose all of its Misrepresentation
and sophistries. All that can now be
done is to indicate briefly very few
of them.
1t is Harrison text book from
cover to cover, and notice is served
ON the members of the cabinet that
they must claim nothing for them
selves except those accomplishments
and endeavOrs which, in the opinion
of the president, were of doubtful
propriety. The book tells them
plainly that ''The record of the
several departments of this govern
ment during the last three and half
years lis the record of Benjamin Har-
rison as president. What they have
done he has done. His has been in
all cases, the directing mind" There
is an especial assertion of the presi-
dents claim of credit for all that was
done by the state department, and
Mr.. Blaine is entirely ignored.
In the review of that department
Mr.. Blaine's name is mentioned but
once. and that is connected with the
seal fisheries, for the evident purpose
of throwing upon him the responsible
ity for the pretense that Behring sea
is mare clausum and that seal catching
by Canadian vessels is contra bonos
mores. To this extent does Mr..
Blaine's responsibility 60; the rest be-
longs to the president.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing
about this wholesale appropriation Of
credit to the president relates to the
reciprocity scheme. That, too, be-
longs to him, Notwithstanding his well
known aversion to that method of
sugar coating the Mckinley bill, as
evidenced by his message Of June 10,
1890, transmitting Blaine's reciprocity
report to congress. 1t will be remem-
bered that in that message he said:
1T will certainly be time enough
for us to consider whether we must
cheaper the cost of production by
cheapening labor in order to gain &C
cess to the South American markets,
when We have fairly tried the effect of