Middletown transcript., 1894-03-10
DEM0CRACY'S FAILURE.

The following arragnment of Mr.. Cleve-
land and his party is copied from Har-
per's Weekly, (Democratic) and is one of
the most scathing criticisms of the present
Administration that has yet come from any
source:
As an original Mugwump of Republican
antecedents who has never hesitated to act
with the Democracy when the public good
seemed to demand it or to denounce the
errors and abuses of both parties, may
possibly be able to take a not wholly preju-
diced view of the political situation.
To understand it Alright we must cast
backward glance on the election of 1892.
The canvass of that year on the part of the
Democracy was the boldest and most suc-
cessful fraud since the somewhat simular
one of 1874. Mr.. Cleveland was nominated
on platform framed to render his nomina-
ton impossible, and he accepted it in let
ter which was model of adroit evasiveness.
His managers were thus enabled 10 solicit
popular support on pledges suited to any
given section. II objections We're made to
the radical demagoguery of the platform
they could declare that Mr.. Cleveland was
the platform. The bogy of defunct and
buried force bill was evasively used, farm
ers were dazzled with the prospect of $1.25
wheat, while workinsmen were told that
the tariff had nothing to do with wages,
The anti-snappers were lured with the
hopes of a vindication of the principles for
which they had struggled, while the Tam
many tiger was placated in the mysteries of
the Victoria Hotel dinner.
| So heterogeneous combination of voters
was never before marshaled together at the
polls. Its nucleus was that standing men
ace to our institutions, the solid South,
with its votes in Congress and the electoral
college based on the freedmen, whose bal
lots are practically suppressed Allied with
this were the great corporations in sugar,
beer and whisky; Tammany Hall in New
York, the race track gamblers in New Jer-
sey, the Anarchists and enemies of the pub
lie schools in Illinois, and the Socialists
who under various disguises, haYe obtained
so wide following beyond the Mississippi.
Mr.. Cleveland marched to triumph at the
head of all the dangerous classes of the
Republic.
When the time came to redeem the assort-
ment of mutually destructive pledges made
for Mr.. Cleveland by his lieutenants there
inevitably ensued the disintegration and
decentralization which are rendering Con-
on ohiaot of Nd r,l,i
only kept under ftful control by prostitu-
ton of patronage more cynical than has
hitherto disgraced the nation. No great
party in our history was ever before placed
in a position 50 humiliating as was the
Democracy when, in order to carry out the
silver policy of its platform, it was obliged
to call upon its cheated and defeated oppo-
nents to overcome the majority of its own
members
1t is small wonder that the land which
two years since was so prosperous is now
paralyzed with fear of the possibilities
which lie before US at the hands of the
motley mob gathered in the halls of Con-
gress. Nor, in considering the effect of this
| upon the popular mind, can we omit the
bitter humiliation arising from the fact that
we are delivered over to the tender mercies
of the South To one whose memories of
the Civil War are still fresh it would seem
impossible that the vanquished South
should already, by means of the Demo-
| cratic party have become dominant in the
Union into which it was coerced. Yet so
! - IL l.
| with patience on the spectacle of the suffer-
| ing industries of the North-the silent
| forges, the closed mills, the hundreds of
thousands of starving men and women
| converted from industrious operatives to
| dependents on charity.
To one who deplores this desolation it
| adds q scene Of shame to reflect that the
vast and complex structure of Northern
civilization was placed in the House of Re-
preientatives at the mercy of little knot
| of Southern country lawyers, and that in
| the Senate Missouri Arkansas and Texas
| furnish the men who counsel together on
| the destinies of Massachusetts. New York
| and Pennsylvania. Under such conditions
| IL ID III HOlIQSl tIdG bHc pOliCy duOplel
seems as though it were meant for the
| Grand-duchy of Gerolstein. To meet an
approaching deficit of o,oO0,O 900 tariff is
framed deliberately estimated to reduce the
revenues S75 ,000, 900 more. and to fill this
yawning abyss resort is had to the most un-
just and detested of war taxes-the tax on
incomes. When the South can accomplish
| legislation so purely sectional, Gettysburg
and Five Forks are avengel.
1t is useless for those who voted for Mr..
| Cleveland in the fond belief that he was
better than his party to look to him for
relief When he accepted office at the
hands Of such fJrtuitous agglomeration
of incongruous factions as that which was
fraudulently gathered to his support he for
feited all influence over his supporters
save that derived from the prostitution of
patronage, and this is an influence which
necessarily exhausts ITSELF Nor can there
be any sane expectation of help from a
President who, during period of such un-
examped national distress, busies himself
in quixotic endeavors to right the wrongs
of dusky savage damsels in the Pacifc-a
knight errantry which Professor Woolsey
has shown to be eminently superAuous,
and which unpleasantly suggests the fid-
ding of Nero while Rome was burning.
The only comfort which lover of his
country can extract from the situation is
the hope that it cannot last. The recent
elections are encouraging, inasmuch as they
indicate revival and reconciliation of
of conservatism protest against the in
novating radicalism into which the Demo-
cratic party has found itself forced. On
the other hand, there are prospects which
are by no means reassuring. The socialistic
alliance: of the Democracy have given to
the wild theories of Populism a national
character which may render them supre
mely dangerous in the near future. Ofthis
we have foretaste in the support which
the South has secured from the West for
its income tax project. Democracy may
find in socialism its Frankenstein. We
| 10 Al. Al i r