Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1894-01-25
PUBLIC OPINION.

ination and careful study of the line
between self reliance and arrogance.
They will call to mind the saying of the
wise man that pride gOeth before de-
struction and naughty spirit before a
fall" This is a fitting time to contract
the methods which should prevail IN
our Republic and those that do prevail
in imperial despotisms.
Contemplating these subjects in the
calm hours which accompany his disap-
pointment. the President can not fail
TO realize that his second Administra-
ton has thus far been turbulent and
nromotiye of discomfort. He has sought
to do good alternately by stealth and by
violence. Hiding from the Senate his
appointment of Commissioner Blount,
and successfully hiding from Congress,
during the eighty eight days of its extra
session, his preparations for war upon
the Hawaiian Government, he landed at
that port the instrument through whom
war was to be inaugurated the day after
the end of that session. However high
his aims, and however necessary to the
honor of the United States it might
have been to restore the kanaka Mon
archy, it was an attempt at doing good
bv stealth which will not soon be
repeated.
In the direction of violence, we have
seen an extra session of Congress called,
after repeated announcements from the
friends of the President that it would
not be assembled until it had succeeded
in bending to his will Senators and Rep
resentatives to insure the passage of an
important public measure, to which they
were known to be opposed. Whether
this measure was wise OF not is I'M
material in this connection. The method
of forcing it upon the country was I'M
perial and not Republican. 1t was
wanting in respect for the legislative
branch of the Government. Where the
constitution gave him authority only to
recommend. he commanded. When the
bill had passed the House he returned
his thanks to a single member in letter
which found its way into the news
papers. TIE plain inference was that
he regarded the passage of the bin as
personal favor to himself, rather than
the legitimate exercise of the law making
power by the representatives OF the
people While it was pending in the
Senate he reprimanded that body twice
for tardiness in obeylng his will-once
in letter to the Governor of a State,
and once in speech from the steps OF
the Capitol. His favoriteS and the
sycophantic editors of his newspaper
organs treated the final passage of the
measure as they might a victory Of arms
over foreign enemy, and sang praises
to the President as though he had been
successful General rather than a civil
magistrate.
The method pursued in preparing and
presenting to Congress his views on the
tariff question has been equally on the
imperial order. Needless of the opin-
ions of wiser men than himself, who
have grown gray in the service of the
party and of the country, and in naughty
contempt of the policy of his party, as
laid down in the National Convention
which nominated him, and which the
people have indorsed, he has taken out
of the hands of Congress the question OF
| tariff reform, and has himself submitted
his decree on the subject with the de-
mand that it be registered by Congress.
The measure he has formulated has
all the faults of the Mckinley law IN
different degrees, and none of its merits.
| Wholly insufficient to provide revenue
for the Government, on the collection OF
which is alone based the right to pass
anv tariff bill, he leaves Congress found
ering between an income tax and duty
on sugar to make up the deficiency
This he does perhaps in the same liberal
spirit that prompted political manager
of his own State many years ago to make
a slate for State Convention with nc
Attorney General upon it. Being asked
who should be nominated for that office
he replied: "Oh! let the convention
nominate for one Office itself"
Up to this time there has been nothing
| like persuasion on the part OF the Pres
ident to bring men over to his views
There has been no evidence of thai
rational self f-distrust which is an element
in all truly great men, and which would
prompt him to see if the views of Others
might not in some cases be preferable
to his own.
The improper exercise of power beget'
resistance The American people vii
follow beloved leader to the farthes
extent, and sometimes when they thlnl
he is in the wrong; but they will not b.
driven by master a single foot wheI
/. they discover in him a purpose to drive
1t is not given to the President NOR
than to other people to always see him
self as others see him. Well would it b.
for him if some of his 1atterers ant
parasites would occasionally make room
for some independent minds to get nea
and to warn him that imperial manner
and language and methods are out o
place in Republic, and that, unwit
tingly no doubt, he sometimes fails t.
meet the reasonable expectations o
plain and independent citizens Of tn
Republic.
, SINGULAR FIGURES.
Cincinnati Tribune.
No very significant lesson is to b.
drawn from the record of commercial
failures in 1898. but the figures presen
some singular facts. In the New Eng
land States there were 2,015 failures