The Van Buren press. [volume] (Van Buren, Ark.) 1859-1914, 1896-08-15
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.
The Present Political Situation Has Occurred
Twice Before In America.
(New York Joufnal)

lMlce Deloft IN afnericd.
(New York JouTnal)
Toryism is an instinct, temperament,
which is found in all countries and at all
epochs And it always exhibits itself in
the same way. 1t takes alarm at every
suggestion of reform, and its first I'm
pulse is to assail the motives of the agi-
tators who attempt to end old abuses,
and to bury them under a torrent of
Vituperaticn. We have had three great
periods of political advancement il this
country before the pres mt one-those
marked respectively by the triumph of
the Jeffersonian Republicans over reae-
tionaIy Federalism, the final establish
ment of the widest popular government
under Jackson, and the abolition of
slavery. In every case the voices tnat
are now shouting "Jacobin. sm." "ReYo-
luton and Anarchy" had their eeun-
terparts shrieklns precisely the same
epithets. With only a change oil names,
but not Of language, a b oderalist dIatfiDe
III loU0 would have passed equally well
for an antl7Jackson manifesto IN 1873,
pro-slavery pronunclamento in 1896, or
Mckinley saylol-ot-soeiety" procIama-
ton IN the present year.
In many cases the Tories of 1896 are
the llneal successors of those that llbeled
Jefferson and Jackson and stirred up the
mobs TO lynch aboltlonists. Two vi our
New York contemporaries, the Evening
Post and the Commercial Advertiser,
date back to the early days of American
politics. They saw the same horrors
then that they see now. 1t Is the most
lJfn - fa4IV
III the campaign of 1900 "Marcellus"
supposed to be Hamilton, predicted in
the Commercial Advertiser that .Jeffer-
son, if elected, would turn out every
Federalst office holder, tumble the
financial system of the country into ruin
at one stroke" and thus of necessity
stop all payments of interest on tGe pub
lie debt and bring on universal bank,
ruptey and beggary." He would disnlan-
tie the navy, 80 that every vessel which
foated flom our shores would Ne PUN
dered or eaptuled.' The scared vet
Grams of the Revolution, deprived of their
PENSIONS would be seen starving III the
streets, or living on the cold and precar
rious supplies of charity" The officers
of the Government, unable to collect
their salaries would resign, and "eoun-
terfeiting would be ptacuced with I'M
punity."
Nothing much worse has been feared
from the election of Bryan Yet Jeifer-
sons election was the beginning OF the
most prosperous period this country had
ever known, and the results OF the ex-
pertinent pleased the people SO well that
the very name of the opposition party
died out, and when, in the course OF u
quarter of century, flesh political d.
visions arose, there had to be an en-
tirely new start, since the whole Union
had become Jeffersonian.
Even after Jeffersons election the
alarmists continued their gloomy predlc-
lions for time. The Evening Post,
which from its very earliest days has
had the habit of collecting lis valuable
opinions in pamphlet form, putting them
on sale in its counting room, and then
suppressing them when it fluids it ad-
vlsable to alter its course, attacked his
first message in a series OF articles
signed "Lucius Crassus.p The verdict of
Crassus, otherwise the Post, was that.
The message of the president by
whatever motives it may have been die
tated, is performance which ought TO
alarm all who are anxious for the safety
of our GovernmeJ t, for the responsibility
and welfare of cur nation. 1t makes, or
aims at mak.rg, most prodigioIs sacri-
flee of Constitutional energy, OF sound
principle, AID OF public interest, to the
popularity OF one man.
10 complete the similarity between
that time and this, the clergy Was as
active ia behalf of ''order and property
then as now. The political preacher Was
expoundhg Federalism from thousand
pullits The Rev. John Mason, The fash
ionable exhorter of New York, suspended
L fast day sermon to exclalm:
"Senc us, if Thou wilt, murciun upon
our cattle, famine upon our land; send
US pestilence to waste our cities; send
us, if it pleases Thee, the sword to battle
itself in the blood of our sins; but spare
us, Lord God Most Merciful, spare us
that curse-most dreadful of all curses
an alliance with Napoleon Bonaparte.'
So destable were the Republican doc
trlnes drought to be, that the men who
held them were cut by their Federalist
acquaintance. Social persecution was
added to political prescription. The fam
lilies of the Republican leaders were har-
assed. During the absence OF Elbridge
Gerry in France, in 1898, the model or
a guillotine, stained with blood and
bearing headless effigy, was repeatedly
set up before the window of his young
wife in Cambridge.
When Jefferson was elected, the people
in the stanch Federalist sections de-
SPARED of the Republic They expected
to see the Government crumble to pieces
about their ears. But to their astonlsh-
meut the Republic went on, greater,
more powerful and more honored tnan
ever. And so it will go on after the
election of Bryan. The historian OF the
twentieth century will relate the out
break Of the curious hysteria OF 1916
with the same amusement with when
the historian of today tells of the de-
lusions of 1900.
PUBLIC OPINION.
Senator Hill is still willing to say u am