Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1896-07-22
THE HARD LUCK OF THE LONE IDEA"

can not grow in this country. In it
are too many ambitions, interests and
This is the sole reason
why the Prohibitionist party has never
to a row of pins" and its
prodigious campaign efforts always end
with such an uniform inglorious result
which to call disaster would be fulsome
compliment. And it happens, too, in
this country from the very nature of
its institutions favoring and fostering
every impulse and inspiration that
tend to human happiness and attain.
ment that when a political party, no
matter how great in the power of num-
bers, is so reduced in the of
intellectual leadership that it is forced
to concentrate its energies upon one
single issue, the time of its dissolution
is near at hand. At the bar of reason
and judgment, where legends and ira
ditions count for naught, in whose
frigid atmosphere the flowers of senti.
mentality wither and perish, and where
the unimpassioned philosophy of ac-
tual facts and the inflexible tyranny of
business interests in all their forms hold
sway this party "a not maintain its
title 10 activity and existence. By
the decree of this court it must vacate
for something more expansive, more
diffusive, more promising and more
fruitful-a court that regards with
equal favor and impartiality the hus-
bandman driving the reapers through
the wheat fields of the Dakotas, the
pork packers of Illinois, the flock,
masters of Ohio, Colorado and Texas,
the owners of the uncounted cattle
herds on the plans of Kansas and Ne.
braska, the embrowned Southerners
raising sugar cane on the malarial
lowlands of Louisiana and the fat coral
beds of the Florida peninsula, the
growers of the snowy staple of South
Carolina and Mississippi, the iron and
steel masters of Pennsylvania, Ala.
bama and Tennessee, the owners of the
silver and gold lodes in Idaho, Mon
tana, Nevada and California, the grain
producers of the Western prairies, the
copper kings of Michigan, the coal
operators of Kentucky and the Vir'
ginias, and the mill owners whose
plants crowd the banks of the Merri
mac.
A party that loses sight of and ig
nores the vital and dominating inter
ests that supply the people with food
raiment and the utilities Of civil
cation and the Nation with needed
revenues, and surrenders itself to ONT
idea, and that idea debased to a craze
over a currency whose wise and care
full adjustments are a guarantee of it,
permanent soundness, deserves the
humiliation that will surely cvertakt
it. And this is the status of the Demo
cratic party today. 1t exhausted it
genius and the energies of its master
full intellect in reforming the tariff
Calamity followed every step of it
progress until a ruined and devastated
country called q halt and brought il t,
Judgment. Tariff smashing free trader.
saturated, absorbed, the Democracy
Its fatal vagaries came with the dis
tinctive violence of dynamic explosion
values slumped until the propert.
holder was as poor as the wandering
mendicant begging at his gate. Capi
tai, shorn of its profits, locked up it
iron Golfers and quit business. Labo
was turned out upon the highways
ragged and starving tramp. The stream
of revenue ceased its flow, the nationa
treasury was an "aching void" an
its necessities became the prey of tn
shylocks of a foreign banking syndt
cate. The tax rate was a merciles
levy on poverty and want, Democrat
had done its deadly work and withou
the guidance of a single issue wander
+ ed and foundered in the boys and fen
of the Dismal Swamp of a popular n
, p%udiation, until one section of tn
/ fugitive and discredited party caugt
&. the white CLEAN of a marsh light an
, the other the yellow flash of q FREELY
| tail, and ever since the circumambier
air has been fretted by the twang {
silver and the chink Of gold.
The Democrats have one grand issu'
They have discovered n m~agnifice1
idea, and upon it they sound ever
| note from the short, dry chirping
the cricket to the deep bassoon of tt
. frog-upou it they ring every chang
from the syren eloquence of the Easter
. Cicero to the saloon shrek of IL
western mining camp.
4 With or without education the ave
E age Democrat can not understand an
e can not solve industrial problem
4 They are 80 far below his marvelol
mental capacities it is impossible fl
I him to descend to their level. Tn
has been superabundantly and mo
q painfully verified. But with or wit
! out education he is a financier fro
q instinct and from Wayback. Monetal
science is his native element, and in
he is even more at home than WHIT
he is expounding the constitution. tt
whole field of economy is as plain
him as the sunlit valley to the mou,
tain rover gazing from the loftie