The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1896-06-27
THE SUN ADRLFT.

The New York Sun, which has posed
as democratic paper almost for ages,
but which has been more damaging to
the democratic party than the most
radical republican paper published in
the couatry, has for the past year been
trimming its sails to support Morton
for the presidency, but the st. Louis
convention knocked the wind out of
its sails by nominating Mckinley, and
now the poor, old Sun is adrifr. 1t op.
posed C,eveland's administration from
the beginning, for the simple reason
that he was nominated and elected
contrary to the wish of its austere
editor, who desired in 1892 to pose as
a dictator, but found himself in the
wrong pew. And now, since his
counsel was not heeded by the repub-
lican national convention, and Morton
was turned down as it were, he en-
deavors to steer his frail barque around
into line with democracy, and walls
about the St. Louis nominee, the past
administration, and the future duty OF
the democratic party as follows:
1.-THE republicans have nominated
| Mckinley, with unaninity not ex-
pressed for any successful new candi-
date, with the exception of Fremont,
the first republican candidate, in 1856,
and Grant, the third, in 1858. They
| alone were nominated for first term
on the first ballot.
sit is shall wv view which supposes
that this extraordinary demonstration
has been mere matter of manipula-
tion aud forehandedness in the minutia
of convention politics. An amiable,
engaging, snowy, hut rather shifty
commonplace like Mckinley often
reaches public distinction; but person.
ality or individual achievement hasn't
drawn to him the sentiment which has
made his nomination possible with an
| irresistible majority in the republican
| national convention. The fortune of
a name has given him the unrivalled
1
other republican, the reverse OF the
disastrous, aimless, and utterly un-
American politics of Grover Cleveland.
| Men like Thomas B. Reed and Levi
P. Morton, McKinley's superiors in
both mind and character, have lost in
| the lottery, and Mckinley has won.
Clevelandism has made Mckinley, and
We may be thankful that in the
violence of the reaction it has made
| nothing worse.
"Whatis the democracy to do under
these extraordinary circumstances?
The republican platform is for gold.
It is unassallable before the American
people. The republican platform is
for protection. The existing tariff, by
which q large portion of the demo-
cracy think the party should stand,
was avowedly for protection through
the lips of Chairman Wilson, when he
first laid 1t before the house Of repre-
sentatlves fresh from the White House.
After the repudiatiop of the declara-
tion of the Chicago platform that pro-.
lection is constitutionally impossible,
it is no time for hair-splitting over
schedules. The difference between
protection or incidental protection, or
between free wool and taxed sugar, as
Mr.. Cleveland has it, anu free sugar
and taxed wool, as Mckinley had it,
cannot constitute an Ineligible issue.
The democrats must adhere indomit-
ably to the 1892 platform of a tariff
for revenue snly,' or let the tariff sink
out Of sight.
"The democratic party, however,
has function to perform of greater
Importance to itself and 70 the country
than the carrying of an election re-
curing every four years. 1t must re-
deem itself. 1t must make itself again
known and accepted as the party of
equal rights, of party government. of
republican ideas, and of political
stability, or all that Jefferson labored
for and all that his successors have
achieved in the democratic name will
be lost or credited to other parties.
And by just SO long as the need of this
regeneration fails to be recognized,
the beginning of democratic restora-.
tion will be delayed"