The Wilmington daily Republican. (Wilmington, Del.) 1890-1902, 1892-09-03
CALAMITY GROVER. .
HIS PuERlLE SPEECH AT THE NO
LITIGATION REVIEWED.

|
We have been waiting with good
deal of interest for Mr.. Cleveland's first
official utterance as q third time candi
date for the presidency Of the United
States. We were anxious, for instance,
to know whether the ex-president would
again let his far famed "honesty" get
the better of him In another attempt TO
straddle the issue so boldly stated in the
Democratic platform; whether he would
again turn up his eyes In virtuous indig-
nation at the oppression Of our vicious
and illogical SYSTEM" while Of course
protesting the deepest affection and So
licitude for all American interests in
any way "dep ndent upon existing laws"
And our desire has been gratifed.
With sound of music and flare OF
light the Democratic candidates were
notified" Of their nomination in New
York city recently. The "plain peo-
pie" of course were there in all their
glory. So were the robbed and cheated
victims of the Favored ssw." But of
this 1t may be well to let an eye witness
speak-a reporter of the New York
Press:
Upon one side were Mr.. Whitney,
with company Of his friends perhaps
considering the iniquities of trusts
which the platform denounced. Yet
Mr.. Whitney's friends seemed not to be
suffering from the burden of taxation,
and they chatted gayly and merrily
until roar announced the coming of
the candidates.
aIust hayand NJ ygb;tra,,,s be,~ ,,,o,
that one reserved for Governor Flower,
who with his friends represented the
enorInities of Republican rule, which
have enabled this gentle jeweler of
Watertown to gain great fortune. The
railroad genius, Henry Willard, was just
beyond, heavy eyed, solemn visaged,
| awaiting with seeming earnestness the
coming of the candidates, so that he
who is the prince of blind pools would
be able to demonstrate with vociferous
acclaim his sympathy with that plank
of the platform which denounces trusts
and capitalistic enormities.
"And on the other side of the hall
there was Z. G. Benedict. A diamond
flashed from Mr.. Benedict's bosom and
his eyes were very bright, and he seemed
to be in thorough sympathy with the
sentiment of the platform which de-
nounces trusts, no doubt because his ex-
perience as the great power in the Chi
cago Gas trust gave him opportunity to
learn something of the enormity of these
monopolies. .....
"And then farther along in the boxes
We're Orlando B. Potter, capitalist
who, if he has suffered, has made no
revelation of it, and E. Ellery Ander-
son and Charles s. Fairehild and Fred
eric Coudert and Frank S. Scott and
William r. Grace and score or more
of suffering capitalists who were ready
to indorse those Examinations which
were expected from Mr.. Cleveland
against the greedy yearnings of the
lnonopolists.
1.-THE great body in the garden, how
ever, were not able to distinguish these
persons. The mass of human beings
was SO great, the boxes and the CALLER
les were so densely packed. that it was
almost impossible even from the plat
form to distinguish the countenances of
those suffering mortals, the victims of
corporate and tariff rapacity, who occu-
pied the boxes. But if their faces were
not distinguished their diamonds flashed
with brilliancy which We'd with the
\ sparkle Of the electric lights"
/ However, we are concerned princi-
pally with Mr.. Cleveland's speech, with
its meaningless platitudcs and empty
phrases, its shallow argument and dema-
gogic appeals to prejudice, with all the
old and wornout saws, without which
no speech of the ex-president seems to
be complete. All the old changes were
rung in, as a matter of course. We are
told that the workingman is starving, of
whom the greatest statistician of all the
free traders says that never before was
he SO prosperous; that the farmers are
i going to the dogs, the farmers whose
splendid crops and new markets are fill
ing them with thoughts of better DAYS
| to come, and who have ever constituted
projections stronghold at the polls.
The consumer, too, is not forgotten,
poorer than ever and staggering under
the burden Of the higher prices due to
I Mckinley protection, when every coun-
try newspaper contains the announce
ment of cheaper and better goods, and
a nonpartisan senate committee agrees
that most commodities cost less. The
old sickening cry Of calamity and evil,
when every heart In the land is throb-
bling at the prospect of fairer, brighter,
happier times in the new era of protec-
ton and reciprocity. II makes one
blush as an American citizen to read
this false and canting arrangement of
Auarino citi cbir, and ,..1
icies. What must foreigners think of
such description of the condition of
our country, and from the lips of an ex-
PRESIDENT
1--WE oppose earnestly" says Mr..
Cleveland, 1.-THE theory apon which our
opponents seek to justify and uphold
existing tariff laws, We need not base
our attacks upon questions of constitu-
tional permission or legislative power.
We denounce this theory upon the high
est possible grounds when we contend
that in present conditions its operation
is unjust, and that laws enacted In &C
cordance with it are inequitable and un-
fair"
; The theory" upon which these tariff
laws are based2 Has Mr.. Cleveland for
gotten that in his great free trade mes
rage no spoke 30 earnestly of "condi-
tons, not theories"-of the accumula-
ting asrplus which made lower tariff a
neceesity? But the surplus is gone and
with ii the condition." and 80 1t seems
the theory" must be taken as the pre-
text ON which to ride into Office.
'ours is NOT destructive party. We
are nor NJ enm1ty with the rights of any
OF our citizens. All are our country.
men. We are not recklessly needless Of
any American interests, nor will we
abandon our regard for them.r
There it is again-that cowardly, half |
way sentiment; that unwillingness to
stand true to ones colors which is typ |
ical of Cleveland "honesty." The Chi
camn convention settlnd tho nnnst;nI, nE |