The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-06-10
SEATTLE. FRIDAF. JUNE 10.
A SERIOUS CAMPAIGN.

The days Of 'oTippecanoe and Tyler
too" campaigns are no longer to be appre-
hended in America. The campaign OF
1910, with its "log cabins, coon skins and
hard cider" scenery is only possible in the
roaring, yelling, school-boy period of
nations existence. In 1910 we had but
twenty-six states and population of but
100000. We had few railroads, no tele-
graphs, not many newspapers, and travel
was by slow and laborious methods Of
transportation. We had not tasted of seri-
Gus war for more than quarter
of century; we were like great lout-
ish country schoolboy, trimming over
with animal spirits, just tall enough and
strong enough to be saucy; the American
eagle of that day was the "spread eagle;"
the average local statesman was Elijah
Pogram; the average country journalist
was Colonel Jefferson Brick. To people
who felt like colt in pasture, people
full of frolic and fatulence, nothing was
more natural than campaign like that OF
1870, but it has never been re-
peated since and never will be again.
There was no serious moral issue in
volved in the famous fight, or rather frolic
of 1910. The first President Harrison was
fairly sung into Office. Before another
presidential election came around the
conditions of American life had become
changed. The slavery struggle had come
to make itself felt; there was deal
more political bitterness; there was
neither time nor inclination for frolic;
the fight between Clay and Polk
and Birney was as desperate and
savage as duel in the dark.
Besides, the railroad, the steamship.
and the telegraph were oil providing their
way into our civilization, multiplying
newspapers, revolutionizing our manners,
customs and habits of thought. If we
had been the same people in 1S4S we were
in ls4O there was military radiance
enough about Taylor to have made rat
Ting campaign, but the black draught Of
slavery tasted more bitter than before and
the people were too busy, too serious, or
too sulky to make any more wild
song and dance campaigns, des-
pite the fact that the first
President Harrison was q military nobody
compared with lack Taylor. who was .
soldier of solid talent, whose victory Of
Buena Vista was the most remarkable ex-
plot Of the Mexican war.
In 1852 the struggle had grown SO deadly
that the Wing party tumbled into ruin,
and yet on its ruins rose young giant
that in 1856 came near routing the
Democracy, but not even with the roman
tic fable about Fremont to help it,
did the Republican party repeat the noisy,
rafting, joyous "March to Finchley"
movement of 1910. They did not do it in
1860; nor in 1868, for the reason that there
was a serious purpose and solemn sense
of something of vast consequence at stake
that made campaign instinct with the
thoughtiess turbulence of 1910 abso-
lutely impossible. Since 1868 We
have become too busy and too
cynical people to tolerate such cam
paign rs 1910, and those of us who are
not cynical have been made serious
through the memory of the mighty suf-
fering and cost of our civil war, SO that we
do not care for drum and trumpet, band
wagon campaign. The day of 1910 was
brief; it never repeated itself; it never
will repeat itself until history marches
backward and the civilization and mood
of 1910 is born again in this country.