The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-07-06
TAMMANY's CELEBRATION.

The Tammany celebration of the Fourth
of July is notable for the letters from
Cleveland and from Hill and for the tone
of the address of the day made by ex-Gov-
ernor Campbell of Ohio. These were the
most important utterances made in any
part of the Union on that day, but they
derive their Importance more from the po-
litical rank and station of the men who
made them than from, any intrinsic merit
in the words themselves.
The Cleveland letter is an excellent
specimen of the art of writing nothing with
great pomposity. OF course we could not
expect him to be very enthusiastic in writ
ing to Tammany, but still as the President
of the United States writing of the ami
versary whose celebration recalls the foun-
dation OF the Republic, its noble history
and its present grandeur, the people might
justly have INDUCED the hope that he
would be moved to write something wor-
thy of the reading, and from his high Of
fee, address the people in words that
would rouse their patriotism by manifest
ing his own. Instead of the sentiments
we might have expected from the Presi-
dent of the United States, we get only the
dull moraliZings we are accustomed to
from the man Grover Cleveland. His let
ter, therefore, is notable only as another
evidence of his lack of leadership and an
other proof of that hopeless incapacity
which is now becoming so we'll understood.
Senator Hills letter was evidently in
tended as warning, but sounds more like
a wall of woe. He declares the country is
endangered by the spirit of socialism
which threatens to subvert the constitu-
ton, impose odious schemes of taxation,
maintain an immense standing army and
navy, not for the purposes of defense, but
in readiness for conquest, or TO intimidate
the plain people in the interests of plu-
tocracy. If all this had been uttered by
PETER or Jerry Simpson it would have
passed without comment. 1t is, however,
a new role for Senator Hill to play the
part of the calamity bowler. and his ap-
pearance in it is the more strange as it
was his own party that endeavored to i'm
pose the odious scheme of taxation upon
the people; and moreover, as he knows
very well, the scheme has failed and the
constitution has been amply indicated by
the integrity and wisdom of the Supreme
Court.
Ex-Governor Campbell of Ohio is not
near so eminent at this time in politics as
Cleveland and Hill, but he is one of the
leading Democratic candidates for the Pres
idency, and has possibilities of the coming
man. His speech, therefore, will attract
the attention always accorded to rising
leaders, and the country will not fail to
note that he put aside home politics alto
gether and spoke with no little force and
spirit of the Monroe doctrine and the i'm
portance to the United States of maintain
ing vigorous foreign policy. This speech,
taken in connection with the recent utter
ances of Whitney and Don Dickinson,
would seem to imply that Democracy
was willing to throw Cleveland overheard
in the next campaign and try to save the
party from the task of explaining it's short
comings at home by drawing public atten-
ton to affairs in Venezuela.
Taken altogether, the proceedings of the
celebration afford another proof that
every Democratic leader is up Salt Creek,
each in his own boat, padding his own
canoe, and no two of them headed the
same way. Cleveland is sullen, Hill dis
heartened and Campbell eager to ride on
the rising wave of National patriotism
So long as these divisions last the party
can do nothing, but patriotic Democrats
may at least in reading Campbell's speech
rejoice to know that some of their leaders
are capable of understanding popular SEN
timent and moving in harmony with it.