The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1894-08-24
GORNANPHOBIA.
Disease that Is Among the
Cle~velandites.
Baltimore American.

bdlliluOIt AlllC al
Gormanphobia is a real and somewhat
alarming disease, prevalent for the moment
among the CievelanderS, and in some
aspects it is not issimilar to h~ydrophobia.
The patient is seized with commissions
whenever the Senator's name is mentioned,
just as it happens with the hydrophobiSt
whenever he sees or attempts TO drink
water. and he cannot be quoted except by
the removal or disappearance of the cause.
In other respects GOrmanphobia Is strik-
ingly like the delirium tremens. or the
Imagination appears to play by far the
largest part in the disease. Indeed, IL MAJ
be defined as imagination. run to seed, ex-
continuously excited by snakes, spiders,
rats, or other wonderful efforts of nature
in all conceivable attitudes and conditions,
but by Senator German in all phases of
political diablerie of which there is note,
and some OF which there could not possibly
be any note. for they could never occur
except in the diseased imagination of an in
sane patient.
While it must be fattering to Mr.. Cor
mans self-esteem to have himself pictured
as such a marvellous fin de steele Machia-
velli, IL must be difficult for him to realize
the gullibility. not to say downright simple
ness, of a section OF the party with which
he has been so long and prominently con-
nected. The latest feat of political leger-
demain charged by the Gormanphobis is
that the Senator buncoed the Democratic
majority in the House of Representatives
into passing the Senate bill by the specific
promise TO have passed in the Senate the lit
tie firecrackers which Speaker Crisp and
his adjutants, with much ponp and cir
cumstances, exploded in the House immedi-
ately after the passage of the Senate bill.
This is the abSurdeSt of ali the fantastic
tricks which Gormanphobia has played on
its unfortunate victims. The strongest rea-
son, perhaps, that can be offered for it's
falsity is that Senator German doesn't
shoot firecrackers. He did not take any
stock in the little Springer explosives that
were let off with such hilarity by the
House in the Fifty-second Congress, and
it is unlikely that he takes more interest
in such childish affairs now, when he
thinks his party can fire real guns IL IL
had a competent leader at it's head.
But these same victims of Gormanphobia
have already charged that the Maryland
Senator. in framing the Senate bill, had an
eye TO Maryland and West Virginia coal.
They have asserted this with the utmost
volubility and definiteneSs, and We have no
doubt that they were for once correct.
Men are usually honored for standing up
firmly for the interests OF their States, and
we see no reason why this political virtue
of Derfdy and oishonor because Mr.. CleYe-
land and mis- followers have been stricken
down with a strange and mysterious dis
ease. known as Gormanphobia- But IL he
stood rightly for mis- states interests In
the Senate bin, and forced MS party to do
likewise, is that a reason why sane people
should expect him to undo In a twinkling
all that his skill and nerve had achieved
How utterly puerile all this must seem to
self-contained people-in short, to all who
have not yielded 10 the prevalent distem-
per.