St. Paul daily globe., 1896-03-17
NOMINATED LONG AGO.

That the other Republican leaders
throughout the country have been
thrown into confusion and reduced
to desperate straits by the ap-
parent spOntaneity of the McKin-
ley movement is beyond doubt.
1t has never been a part of
their programme to nominate Mr. Nc
Kinley for the presidency. Almost any
OF them in private conversation, and
not a few of them in public expressions
of opinion are frank enough to say that
Mr.. Mckinley is the weakest candi-
date whom the Republicans could NOM
mate. He is identified with an act
whose passage by congress cost his
party the congressional elections of
1890, and the presidential election in
1892. He is q man without force or
opinions except where the tariff is in
question. He is not sound on the money
question. as his own past utterances
and the financial plank of the Ohio
platform, which he is said to have
written, demonstrate. He has too much
personal honesty to be altogether a
plant tool in the hands of men like
Platt and Quay and Elklrs. All these
considerations have made him ineligi-
BILE from the point of view of the Re-
publican bosses.
Notwithstanding this, not all the eff
forts of party leaders, nor the candi-
dacy of favorite sons in the different
states can stay the rush of party opin-
ion toward Mckinley. He is taking
delegates from Morton in New York.
and Quay in Pennsylvania, and Cullom
In Illinois, and Davis in Minnesota.
There is no possible question that he
is the choice of more than ee-fourths
of the Republicans of the country to-
day. And why not? Mr.. Mckinley is
not just now for the first time receiv-
ing the Republican nomination. The
members of that party have been con-
ferring 1t upon him with great assid-
uity for the past three years. Every
argument advanced falsely by Repub-
licans against the Democratic party
and its administration has been an
unanswerable plea for the nomination
of Mr.. Mckinley. Their sole indict-
ment is that the repeal of the McKin-
ley act and the substitution of the
tariff law now in effect was the cause
OF all our business troubles. If that
is true, and Republicans have united
In the chorus that it Is, then the way
back to prosperity is the way of Nc
Kinleyism. To adopt the policy and
reject the man would be a logical in
consistency Of which the mass of the
people are not likely to be guilty.
The Republican party has been sys
tematically engaged in falsifying the
record for the last four years. Every
untruth that it has told has helped to
fasten upon it the necessity of making
Mr.. Mckinley it's candidate. 1t has
loaded the present tariff act with ex-
ecrations. 1t has declared that the
panic of 1898 grew out Of the alarm
of business men at prospective tariff
changes. 1t has said that our financial
system does not need reform, but that
the treasury's difficulties grew out of an
insufficient revenue, and that this, in
ats turn, was traceable TO the country's
departure from the Mckinley plan,
There is not a single accusation made
against the present conduct of our
government which does not require. as
Its complement, the nomination. by
those who make it, of Mckinley as
their candidate, This is no great fun
for the party bosses, but it is part of
the irresistible logic of the situation.
The Republican press of this country
and its representatives in congress
have been limiting the list of candi-
dates to Mr.. Mckinley by every utter
ance which they have made for the
last three years. 1t is the hand of fate
that has been laid upon them, and
they are punished for their transgres-
sions by being shut in to the selec-
zion of candidate whom the best in
Formed among them believe to be the
least available and the most likely to
be defeated OF the entire list.