The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1894-08-25
SATURDAY.
MS LETTERS.
Mr.. Wilson has many virtues, no

HIS LETTERS.
Mr.. Wilson has many virtues, no
doubt, hut consistency ia not one of
them, says the Inter Ocean, He ex-
pressed much displeasure to his asso-
ciates in congress at the fact that the
private letter of the president to him
had been referred to publicly. This is
the same Chairman Wilson who, to
help himself out of conference hole,
made public another private letter to
him from the same writer.
1t Is matter Of no Importance
what that second letter did contain.
1t was probably one of coincidence.
Two big little boys have got hurt, and
the one who is at once the larger and
the smaller has said something consol-
ing to the other. Such amenities and
amiability are always to be COM
mended. The urchlns who got the
worst of the fight may have been the
aggressors, but the ache that dishonor
feels is none the less acute for being
deserved. In this instance it vas
qnite in order for Mr.. Cleveland to be-
the one to say, in soothing terms,
"Don't cry" for he was responsible
for the drubbing. Had Chairman
Wilson been left to himself and his
conference associates he and all would
have quietly laid down, gone like
sheep to the slaughter, instead of
bristling up their backs like the hack
yard cats in the disturbed watches of
the night. The big Thomas over the
White House fence was responsible
for that sudden transition from a
slaughter house to field of feline
battle. We sincerely hope that Mr..
Wilson finds genuine consolation in
that private letter, and that some day
it will find rest in the sheltering arms
of some Gunther of curiositifs
Fortunately for the country, that
first private letter from the president
of the United States to the chairm, n
of the committee on ways and means s
is a matter of public record, and that
without any purlolning or copyright
ing. Any one can publish it, and we
venture to say that it will attract a
great deal more attention as cam
paign document during the coming fall
than it did as a tariff document dur
ing the late conference. 1t is the
comment of the official head of the
Democratic party upon the leading
feature of Democratic legislation. In
fact, it is almost the only feature,
apart from routine and non partisan
matters, of Democratic rational legis-
lation during period of forty years.
Nothing else of any considerable i'm
portance enacted by congress since
the Nebraska bill of 1854 bears the
mark of Democracy.
To appreciate the significance of
Clevelaud's anti tariff bill letter just
Imagine what it would have meant
forty years ago had President Pierce
written a letter which became public
at the time denounciug that bill with
all the strength of adjectives he could
command, and then little later signed
it or allowed 1t become law. At
hat time Senators Seward. and Sum-
n.r made the country fairly ring with
their denunclations of the Nebraska
bill, but had such letter been con-
tributed to the discussion their elo-
quence would have suffered eclipse.
Nothing which Mr.. Cleveland may
now say can counteract or neutralize
what he has already said. "The word
once spoken cannot be recalled" H.
is not so much the vehemence of the
language that gives it weight as the
justice of the arraignment. Senator
Vest told the truth when ne said that
the first of these Cleveland Wilson
letters would he the best campaign
document the Republican party could
have for this falls use.