The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1892-11-18
THE REWARD OF LOYALTY.

Betrayed by its managers, deci-
mated by blunderng leadership
and diminished by deliberate trea-
son, the democratic party OF Ore
con comes out of the election with
less than one-third its old numerl-
cal strength, with its organization
DESTROYED, deserted by It's leaders,
and with nothing TO show for Its
struggles and its sufferings but its
clear record of loyalty TO party
principles and its legitimate claim
10 share the spoils of the national
victory, to which it could contrib
nte nothing but fidelity and good
will.
At the last gubernatorial elec-
tion the democratic party OF Ore
gon cast over $4,000 votes. Its
Vote for the Cleveland electors last
Tuesday will reach barely ls,eeo.
The rest have been stampeded by
Pennoyer and Murphy into the
populist camp. The democratic
party in Oregon has been betrayed
deliberately to build up a peoples
party. The Weaver vote i'll this
state will not be less than 2s,oOO.
1t is relatively as strong as the
democrats were before they went
TO pieces. Indeed, the republican
plurality over Weaver will prob.
ably be less than the republican
plurality over the democrats at
the congressional election last
June. The peoples party has
superseded the democratic as one
of the two leading parties of Ore
gon, relegating the democrats to
the limbo of third party obscurity
with the prohibitionists, at the
very time when the peoples party
drops out of sight in national af-
fairs and the democrats achieve
complete control of the national
government.
This should make strange divi-
sion of the spoils of victory. Those
leaders who have taken two-thirds
of the democrats into the peoples
party fall heir naturally to control
of that organization. Pennoyer
should reign undisputed hence
forth, as leader of the second party
in the state, as autocrat of the 25,-
900 voters now ranged under the
Weaver banner in Oregon. What
ever glory there may be now,
whatever profit there shall be
hereafter in leadership and con-
troll of the peoples party in Ore
gon belongs to Pennoyer, Murphy
and their associates. They will
call and superintend its conyen-
tions. They will manage its cam
paigns. They will reap the fruits
of any future defeat of the repub-
licans in the state elections. If
the republicans shall lose the legis-
tature two years hence, Pennoyer
will go to the senate, and if Her
mann and Ellis shall be defeated,
their successors will be men who
voted for Weaver last Tuesday.
That is the reward of their deser-
ton of Mr.. Cleveland in the day
of trial.
Those democrats who did not
desert Mr.. Cleveland should reap
the reward of their steadfast
loyalty to democratic principles;
of their refusal TO vote for Weaver
and the Omaha platform, III the
face ofiusidious temptation. They
should receive whatever share
may be due to Oregon of the spoils
of the national victory. They
are few, but they are enough 10
fill the federal Offices in Oregon
and what other places Mr.. Cleve
land may think proper to give
his supporters in this state.
These are their due. They are
all that is left of the democratic
party in this state, and the demo-
cratic party is about to begin
distribution Of federal patronage.
The men who voted for Cleye-
land would ask nothing of Weaver
If he were elected president. The
men who voted for Weaver have
no right to expect anything of
Cleveland. There is no fear that
Governor Pennoyer will commit
such an improperly. He will
hold himself as sternly aloof from
the democratic president as he
has from the democratic ex-presi-
dent. He will indorse no appli-
cation for Office to the man he did
his utmost to defeat. ALI self-re-
specting Weaver democrats should
initiate him.-Oregonian.