The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1892-11-04
THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.

unsatisfactory review of the outlook
may be interesting. The logic of the
situation the country over is with the
Republicans, who are also conceded to
be as we'll organized and as thoroughly
united as at any time in the history of
the party. They are standing squarely
on the Minneapolis platform and solidly
and enthusiastically behind the Min
neapolis candidates, making no apol-
ogies but conductinga straightforward
fight which must appeal to the admira-
tion and support OF that great body of
independent voters who prefer the sue
cess Of party which stands for some
well-defined views, even if those views
are not wholly in line with their inde-
pendent opinions.
On the other hand the Democracy,
while we'll organized and evidently
making a desperate struggle with all
the resources at its command, presents
the humiliating spectacle of a great po-
litical party wholly at seaso far as we'll
defined principles are concerned. Its
candidates and its chief speakers and
organs have repudiated almost entirely
the Chicago platform on the tariff ques-
tion, and have ignored that platform on
the question of currency. particularly
the plank with reference to reviving
the state bank issues. Each section of
the country is treated to that particular
doctrine to which it is supposed to be
partial, and as Tom Reed so aptly
said the other day, Democratic speak
er who would start in Texas and make
the same speech clear through to Maine
would be nothing but ghost when he
finished it. 1t seems to be a regular
as-you-please fight all along the line,
each squad having its orders to use any
and all ammunition likely to secure a
vote re gardless of the plan of campaign
at headquarters.
Here in the northwest the fusion
boomerang is being swung in several
states; openly in some of them as in
Minnesota, Colorado and Nebraska, and
secretly in others, particularly in South
Dakota. The mere suggestion of fusion
with party whose principles are dia-
metrically opposed to those which De-
mocracy claims torepresent, is a confess
sion of weakness and of fear to go be-
fore the people of this country on the
merits of the case. If the trend of pop
ular sentiment is setting in so strongly
toward tariff reform and other Demo
cratic principles as the leaders of that
party would have us believe, what need
is there for the qualification which is
going on in every state where the fusion
fetch is being worshipped? The spec
tacle is one which must be humiliating
to all honest and sincere Democrats,
who cannot avoid the conclusion that
their votes are being sought for simply
to make possible the distribution of a
few federal and state offices among
certain class of politicians to whom
political creed is a secondary consider
alton.
of the desperation and Decentralization
of the Democratic forces in the country
at large. 1t is an indisputable fact that
with New York lost the Democrats can
not hope to win even if they secure the
scattering electoral votes they are chas-
ing after in the west; and if they carry
New York with the other states which
they so confidently claim they will haye
no need of these votes and might have
spared their party members in the west
the humiliation they are now undergo
ing. The situation in New York, then,
is the thing to be considered at this
juncture, and in forming conclusions
thereon we are influenced very largely
by the daily estimates printed in the
Democratic New York Sun, confessedly
the greatest newspaper in the country
because the ablest and most reliable.
Editorially its course may not meet the
approval of many good Democrats butin
its news columns there are no politics,
and its prediction estimates have
been sustained almost without excep-
tion for the past twenty years. The
Sun gives both sides the benefit of every
doubt, and its latest summary shows
that the Republicans have the best OF
the situation in that pivotal state at
this time. 1t contrasts daily the situa-
ton at each national headquarters, and
while it says the Democrats seem con-
tident and are making their usual claims
of everything in sight their reasons for
confidence are MT apparent to the
naked eye. On the other hand the Re
publican managers are making no loud
boasts but are conducting the most
thorough campaign ever made in that
II state, and claim to have the estimates
4 in hand which assure for Harrison a
4 larger majority than he received four
asssyears ago.
~ In The western states while here and
asthere a rainbow Democrat talks about