The Coconino weekly sun., 1893-12-07
DEMOCRATIC FAILURE.
The Negative Policy Pursued by the Party
 In Power.

Tho Negative Policy Pursued by the Party
 In Power.
 There is a perfectly philo sophie ex- r,anatiou of the extraordinary muddle ;r which, in less than twelve months, the democratic party has involved the revenues, the treasury and the entire financial system of the country.
 People who arc amazed that this sbould have happened should remem- her what the democratic party is, and under what sort of conditions Mir. Cleveland and his party assumed the control and direction of the general government in all its branches
 For thirty-two years the democratic party had been in continuous oppo- sition. It elected Mir. Cleveland, to be sure, in 1884, but only by scratch, and full control of the government did not gosto the party at that time. It had chosen president by the help of a large malcontent republican vote, but it had failed to carry the country in any real sense of the phrase, and it had not secured working majority in con gresS
 When the full victory of 1892 came upon it the democratic party, after thirty-two years of uninterrupted op- position, found itself in the novel po- sition of being intrusted with all the burdens and responsibilities of actual administration
 All its statesmen had spent their lives up to that time in opposing, objecting, denying, denouncing and obstructing.
 Not one of them had ever felt the necessity of affirming any practical measure of administration. They were on the negative side always.
 Their habitual attitude was that of the newly arrived emigrant in the story, who, getting into Castle Garden in election week, was urged by Tam many worker to register and vote.
 "Ye are dimmicrat, of course?" said the Tammany worker to the gem tleman just landed.
 "I dunno at all, at all," said the lat ter in reply, but have yez a givern- mint? If yez have, I'm agin it"
 The democratic party had been in precisely that attitude for over three decades-simply "agin the govern mint"-when it was suddenly called to run the government itself from last March
 It was called upon to cease denying everything and begin affirming some thing; to propose policies instead of opposing them; to construct legislation instead of obstructing it; to do the real work of government instead of criti- cising and hindering it; to keep the treasury full instead of denouncing all the taxation by which it is fed; to frame tariff itself that will not in- jure invested capital or employed labor instead of wildly declaiming against tariff bills drawn by others
 Thirty-two years devoted wholly to opposition have trained school of democratic leaders who cannot lead anything but attacks upon other peo. ple's affirmative and constructive poli- cies
 Democracy is nothing but a national negation. It has been saying No" to everything for thirty-two years. It cannot say anything else. In the dis nal lexicon of its leadership there is no such word as "Yes."
 That is why the ways and means committee is the storm center of demo- cratic objections and protests from every corner of the union. North, south, east and west the democratic party, on the tariff as on the money question, is kicking against itself For a whole generation it did nothing but kick against the republican party. The habit is so fixed upon it that, now it is nomiually in power, it's kicking impulse is too strong for it, and it goes on kick ing against itself.
 It will continue thus to play football with the national finances and revenue system, and kick unceasingly until the country kicks it out of power and puts it once more into the only place it is fitted to fill opposition.-N. Y. Re-