Birmingham state herald., 1895-12-06
wArrERsoN oN cLpvELAND.

WATTERSON ON CLEVELAND.
 Henry Watterson, who has been one of the staunchest supporters of Cleveland and his administration. finds himself un- able longer to play cuckoo. The fact is, the able editor of the Courier-Journal is not adapted to that role and his recent utterances are no surprise to those who have known him as a bold, fearless jour nalist holding the principles of democ- raey and the success of the party on those principles as of far greater impor- tanee and moment than the fortunes of any man or set of men.
 Although MT. Watterson has been ap- parently blinded by the light that has flashed from the throne" at the White House, the scales have fallen from his eyes, and in a recent editorial in his pa- per he unburdened himself of his long pent-up feelings as follows:
 Tt may be that Mir. Cleveland has been all that the needs of the country have absolutely required. But he has been a woeful scourge to democracy. In the minor details of administration he has certainly displayed uncommon ap- titude. He has transacted the business of the executive office as if it were his own private property. His dominancy of character is indisputable. To the extent of his very limited range of intellectual vision he sees clearly and thinks accu- rately. If his knowledge were equal to his intention, which, though deriving it's substance and strength mainly from his own conception of his own interest, still looks upward and not downward, he would at this moment find himself at the head e a victorious army, moving for Wa d upon lines of thought consistent in themselves and nFOnpllA6 Inv a ular impulse.
 "Unfortunately MT. Cleveland possess es no original opinions or information upon any economic subject. Getting ev erything at second hand and by absorp- ton. he is as likely to go wrong as right as far as his own unwarped judgment is concerned. He half-learned his tariff les son, and as a consequence he has been. ever since his message of 1887, the most potent obstruction to tariff reform in the United States.
 When one recalls how it was he who sent German and Scott to the St. Louis conventionoin 1888 with a cut-and-dried platform ignoring and repudiat ting that message, and none other than he who sent five members of his cabinet to the Chicago convention in 1892, headed by Villas, to work for his nomination and to foist upon the party the protectionist gibberfsh which the convention threw out-when one recalls how, after the miracle of his election, he was entreated to allow a. tariff measure consonant with the platform to be brought in and that all the shortcomings and misadventures of the Wilson bill were fully foretold and set forth-and that he himself forced the fighting on that lne-when these things are recalled, what a travesty not merely upon statesmanship, but upon fair deal ing, seem his belated and bombastic let ters to Wilson and Catchings and his os- 1.ef1 In ei a hill xUhiph he, more than any other human being, was responsible!
 But why cry over milk that is spilled? What boots it now what were MT. Cleve- lands ulterior purposes? If he meditated the disruption of both the republican and democratic parties and the construction of a Cleveland party, as his enemies al- lege, he perpetrated a grievous miscalcu- lation. The party which thrice honored him with its nominations and twice elect ed him president is left with the bag to hold and a very empty bag 1t is. He has had his day-to him full of glory and renown--to his party full of disaster. Presently he will go out of place and power. carrying with him the curses of some, the adulation of others, and the average opinion that he was an average president who if he did no great good, did no great harm-marking time, as 1t were and leaving the public service very much as he found it. albeit, for the time being wrecking the cause which the peo- pie fanced to be embodied. in his per son.
 eMr Morton's ilustrati tion of bank and a bank president, with reference to MT. Cleveland and the government, sizes up MT. Mortons master perfectly. MT. cleveland has had no higher ideal The image which the people have constructed out of their own generous and conhding beliefs, setting it upon a pedestal. label- ine if Cleveland and eXtolling it's vir- tues, has never had any actual existence but in it's stead a dull, plodding bank president. suspicious and grudging des- titute alike of imagination and sympa- thy, and far-very far-from nero ot any kind.'