The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-09
OLEVELAND'S COLLAPSE.

The industry OF the country has been
paralyzed, the revenues have been re-
duced below the needs of government, the
expenditures have been raised to above
billion dollars, a spying income tax
has been imposed upon the people, the
pensions of honorable veterans have been
diminished, the bonded debt CT the Nation
increased by $15O,0O0,000, Congress has ad-
journed and Cleveland has gone fishing
behold the results of two years Of Demo-
cratic supremacy.
For much of the evil of these two dis
astrous years Congress may be Justly
blamed, but the greater portion of the evil
has been due to Grover Cleveland. This
stupid, sullen stolid man, vast of neck,
yaster of stomach and vastest of all in his
egotism, has been the destroyer of his
party, the scourge of the people and the
disgrace of the Nation. His rise to office
was accidental and his course has been the
inevitable consequence of electing man
with bare capacity for Sheriff's office,
to the august position of President of the
United States.
Cleveland went into Office for his first
term as the result of monumental lie
backed by party that demanded a
right to see the books of the National
Government and investigate the course of
Republican administrations. The books
revealed no errors, the investigation dis
closed only facts that added to the honor
of the long list of Republican Presidents
from Lincoln to Arthur. Cleveland there
fore had nothing to do but to sit back in
his chair and pose for dignity. As the SEN
q Uo hlipar1 no oO1lA Il 10
expose the full extent of his incapacity,
but he managed to reveal enough Of his
dcmineering spirit to disgust the people,
and at the next campaign he was beaten
for reelection.
-Four years out of office enabled him to
make Mugwump alliances and he was
reelected This time he was borne to
power by tidal wave of popular folly, and
a Democratic Congress went into Office
with him. Then began the greatest ex-
hibition of political imbecility, ignorance
partisanship and factious folly ever made
in a representative government. The story
of the two miserable years that have fol-
lowed needs no reviewing. Our great Re
public has been depressed at home and
shamed abroad. From the management
of the finances to the management of for
eign affairs, everything has displayed an
impotence that has awakened mockery all
round the world.
The ADLER leaders of the Democratic party
have endeavored in vain to check the folly
of their President or to guide his obstinacy,
but they have argued, cajoled and threat
ened in vain. Some of the more independ-
ent representatives of the Democratic press
10 Nv 200 Il
criticisms of the worst errors of the ad-
ministration. Even so stanch a Democratic
paper as the Examiner, the great organ of
the party on the Pacific Coast, found it
impossible to defend him and grew in
dignant in criticising him. Nothing
availed, however. The Democrats had to
take the consequences of their folly in
accepting such leader, and they have now
abundant chance to study out how they
like him.
Side by side with the fat prophet of the
White House has been the lean Mugwump
of the State Department. Between Cleve-
land and Gresham the dishonors are easy.
They have made the complications that in
volved Democracy in hopeless confusion.
They have cheered one another in mutual
blunders by mutual praise and have gone
together deeper and deeper into the mire
Now they stand in the mud and stand
alone. The Democratic Congress is gone.
Their power is stripped from them. The
people watch them with an amused con-
tempt as they fish for suckers, apparently
unconscious that in catching one another
they have each caught a sucker beyond all
measurement or rivalry even in the pools
of politics or the rivers OF corruption.