Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1895-04-11

Prospects OF Prosecutors Champion for
the Presidency.

prospects OF Projections Champion 1oE
the Presidency.
The notion which the neighbors of
Gov. Mckinley entertain that his visit
to Georgia with that active repu blican
politician, Mr.. Hanna, is in the interest
of southern support for the presidential
nomination of his party next year is a
very natural one. No one doubts that
Mr.. Mckinley would like the nomina-
ton, or that on all ordinary principles
of representation in politics he is en-
titled to it. He unquestionably holds
very firmly the ideas that are of more
Importance to a greater number of his
party than any other prominent man
In the party, and he has been very
faithful to those ideas. Protection for
projections sake-not to raise revenue,
nor simply to encourage infant indus
tries, but to enrich American manu-
facturers who are already rich at the
expense of other Americans, most of
whom are not rich-is Mr.. McKinley's
doctrine of what is good for this coun-
try. And that idea commands the
earnest support of great ma ority of
the republicans, and is absolutely the
only doctrine on which the bulk of the
party can fairly be said to be agreed.
Mr.. Mckinley has never departed from
it. He has worked early and late and
very hard for it. He has got it en-
bodied In the statutes of the country.
He is by far the most convinced. de-
voted, distinguished and efficient pro-
tectionist of modern times. Why
should he not aspire to be his party's
candidate for the presidency? And
why should his party not take him as
its candidate?
IT,
answers. In the first place, protection
of the Mckinley sort is not living is
sue in American politics to-day. 1t
was put to Sleep" in the prize-ring
phrase, in 1890 and 1892. No sane poll
tician would dare in 1896 to propose its
resuscitation. The republicans will,
of course, denounce the results of the
democratic policy, but they will not
dare to propose the substitution of
their own. And they will not dare to
put in nomination a man whose can
didacy would be, in effect, a declara-
ton in favor of the dead tariff of 1890.
In the next place, candidates are not
generally selected because they repre-
sent the views of the great body of the
party, but are much more apt to be
taken because they do not represent
those ideas, but are more attractive to
the loosely-attached members of the
opposite party. That was the principle
on which Lincoln was substituted for
Seward in 1850, and, in more recent
times, Harrison for Blaine in 1888. 1t
is the principle on which Mr.. McKin-
ley was set aside in 1892 and will be
again in 1896.
Again, and this is the most impor-
tant point, MI. Mckinley is not sound
on finance. It is charitable to him to
say that on this question he does not
know his own mind. He has coquetted
shamelessly with the si1vermen and
the populists. It is moro than probable
that he will do SO some more in the
south, where his party has made many
disgraceful coalitions in this direction.
1t may be that the republicans may
take man no more sound than he
Mr.. Reed, for instance, but Mr.. Reed
is a man who knows what honest
money is. If he chooses, he can define
and defend it. He does not suffer, as
Mr.. Mckinley does, from mental in
capacity and obfuscation. He would
probably, in any great emergency, if
he had the responsibility of executive
action, do what was right. At any
rate, he could if he chose. Mr.. McKin-
ley could not, for he could not see what
was right, and he could not under
stand it if some one told him. He
would simply yield to pressure, and
more readily in the wrong direction
than in the right.
There is another point of interest in
Mr.. McKinley's plan of operations. He
is plainly trying to work up the south
ern delegations. He may succeed in
that, but 1t will not help him greatly.
There is no record of any candidate for
the presidency in a republican conven-
ton who has won by means of the
southern delegations. Mr.. Sherman
made vigorous and not a very scrup-
ulous effort to capture them in $780,
while he was in the treasury. He got
the southern vote, but he lost the NOM
nation. Mr.. Arthur tried the same
tactics in 1884, with the same result.
Mr.. Blaine worked in the same direc-
ton in 1888, and failed. Mr.. Harrison
had strong southern support in 1892
in the convention, but had he not been
| strong enough elsewhere to disregard
that he would very likely have failed
| also. The fact is that the south has
for many years been treated by the re-
publicans solely as a field in which to
raise crop of delegates It has never
been seriously contested at the polls
| since 1868. The result has been a very
shabby and tricky lot of southern re-
Tlublican DOliticians whom no one ran