The San Francisco call., 1896-06-25
INVOLUTION OF BRAINS.

The degeneracy of the Democratic party
is to be lamented. 1t is a reflection upon
our system of government and an excuse
for the enemies of republican institutions
TO say, as they do, that a system which
inclines one to lower levels OF political in
tegrity and patriotism exerts pernlclous
influence everywhere. In measure that
is doubtless true of the conduct of many Of
the leaders of the Democratic party, but the
rank and file are true to the ethical princi-
pies of the Government, only that too many
of them have permitted party pride to keep
alive degree of enthusiasm for the tradi-
tions of the party that is not justified by
the history of its going and coming in the
last forty years. The party of Douglass,
Benton and Seymour has fallen into the
hands OF political brigands.
Yesterdays gathering of the Democratic
party of Illinois in State Convention fairly
represented the personnel of the leaders
of the party OF to-day. The giant who
lowered above them all as true repre-
sentative of modern Democracy was Gov
ernor Altgeld. For years he has been
charged with being in full sympathy with
the doctrines of Herr Most. How far the
charge is true may be judged by thefact
that Immediately after he was inaugurated
he pardoned the Haymarket anarchists
who had been convicted of murder. In
announcing their pardon, Governor
Altgeld took advantage of the occasion to
charge the court that tried them with be-
ing foul nest of prosecutors of good peo-
pie, such as the Haymarket dynamite
bomb -throwers. He was renominated Tor
Governor yesterday by acclamation, after
delivering himself of coarse and brutal
speech, in which he roundly abused every
respectable Democrat in the land. Alt
geld would be the choice Of the silver wing
of his party for President were it not that
Providence so shaped events that he should
not be born in the United States.
Next to Altgeld comes long list oflead-
ers of modern Democracy. Boies was a
rabid Republican until some ten years ago,
when, growing tired of waiting for his
party to recognize his transcendent states
manship, ne Joined the Democratic party
and was elected Governor on Democratic
anti Prohibition platform. He was called
the whisky Governor" though he never
himself touches whisky or tobacco and
never swears What Democrat Bland,
who was patted on the back by Altgeld' S
convention, thinks that the 'crime of
1872 furnishes the sum total OF the science
of government in the direction of rascal.
ity, and he dwelt upon that one idea so
long that his district, after keeping him
in Congress for twenty years, turned him
down by sending an obscure country ply
cician to Washington in his stead. Bland
is honest enough, but he has not found
out yet that the sun does not reYolve
around the earth.
The best that can be said of Governor
Tillman is that he rattles around in the
seat that John G. Calhoun used to fill. His
great delight is in attacking the Republi-
can party, but the performance so resem-
bles the effort of a dyspeptic child trying
to batter down Gibraltar with a pop gun
that he only amuses. Ex-Congressman
Clark of Missouri, who was recognized as
one of the great leaders OF the Democratic
party at Altgeld's convention, was de-
feated of reelection by Republican itin-
Grant singing-school teacher. And so it
is. Calhonn's mantle upon Tillman's
shoulders; Benton's breeches hiding
BANDS nakedness; Douglas big hat on
Altgeld's little head, and Seymour's spurs
jingling on Boies' heels. The spectacle is
rather worse than the noble dust of Alex
ander stopping a bunghole.