White Oaks eagle. (White Oaks, N.M.) 189?-190?, 1896-07-30

Advertiser date back to tie early days of
American politics. They saw the same
horrors that they see now, 1t is the
most persistent case of tremens on
record.
In the campaign OF 1900 "Marcelus,"
supposed to be Hamilton, predicted in
the Commercial Advertiser. that Jeffer-
son, if elected, would turn out every
Federalist Office holder, tumble the
financial system of the country into
ruin at one stroke and thus of neces-
sity stop all payments of interest on
the public debt and bring on "univer-
sal bankruptcy and baggary.' He
would dismantle the navy SO that
"every vessel which floated from our
shores would be pundered or captur
ed" The SCARED veterans of the revo
luton, deprived of their pensions,
would be seen starving in the streets,
or living on the cold and precarious
supplies Of charity" The officers of the
government, unable to collect their sal
aries, would resign, and "counterfeiting
would be practiced with impunity"
Nothing much worse has been feared
from the election of Bryan. Yet Jeffer-
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 we'll that
the very name of the opposition party
died out, and when, in the course of a
quarter of century, fresh political
divisions arose, there had to be an eu-
tirely new start, since the whole United
States had become Jeffesonian.
Even after Jefftrsons election the
alarmists continued their gloomy pre-
dictions for time. The Evening Post,
which from its very earliest days has
had the habit of collecting its valuable
opinions in pamphlet form, putting them
on sale in its counting rooms. and then
suppressing them when it finds it ad-
visable to alter it's course, attacked his
first message in series of articles
signed "Lucius Crassus." The verdict
of Crassus, otherwise the Post, was
that:
The message of the president, by
whatever motive it may have been
| dictated, is a performance which ought
to alarm all who are anxious for the
safety of our government, for the res
pectabiity and welfare of our nation,
1t makes, or aims at making, most
proiigious sacrifice of constitutional
energy, of sound principle, and of
public interest, to the popularity of one
man."
To complete the similarity between
that time and this, the clergy was as
active in behalf of "order and property
then as now. The political preacher
was expounding Federalism from a
thousand pulplts. The Rev. John
Mason, the fashionable exhorter of New
York, suspended fast day sermon to
exclaim:
"Send us, il thou wilt, murrain upon
our cattle, famine upon our land;
send us pestilence TO waste our cities;
send us, if it peaseth thee, the sword
to bath itself in the blood of our sons;
but spare us, Lord God Most Merciful,
spare us that curse-most dreadful of
all curses-an alliance with Napoleon
Boneparte."
So detestable were the Republican
doctrines thought TO be that the men
who held them were cut by their Fed
eralist acquaintances. Social prosecu-
tion was added to political prescription.
The families of the republican leaders
were harassed. During the absence OF
Elbridge Gerry in France, in 1898, the
model of a guillotine, stamped with
blood and bearing a headIess efligy, was
repeatedly set up before the window OF
his young wife in Cambridge.
When Jefferson was elected the peo.
pie in the stauch Fcderalist section
despaired OF the republic. They ex.
pected to see the government crumble
to pieces before their eyes. But to
their astonisbment the republic went
on, greater, more powerful and more
honored than ever. And so it will go on
after the election Of Bryan. The histor
ian Of the twentieth century will relate
the outbreak Of the curious hysteria Of
1896 with the same amusement with
which the historian Of today tells o
Journal.