Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-11-03

forever from tOuE uOkScCtsS t,OAsS.~' n
potent factors the abhorrent ana evs
forces that his candidacy represents
1t is feared by these leaders OF indus
try, OF business and interstate and
foreign commerce, that unless Bryan
ism is literally wiped out OF existence
by q flood OF ballots cast by Republic
cans and patriotic Democrats, there
may ensue another four years Of un-
certainty, hesitation and stagnation.
caused by the apprehension that this
battle will all have to be fought over
again In the year 1900 This dread il
about all that remains to the Republic
can part OF the Presidential campaign,
but 1t Is dread sufficiently accute to
lend interest to all that the political
generals are doing here and in the
West.
1t is well to repeat. just for the sake
of emphasis. that everybody about the
headquarters of all the various politi-
cal armies is deeply impressed with the
idea that the logical sense of the Ameri-
can people ought to make this election
"a perfect landslide, one way or the
other. Only week ago another echo
of this business and industrial disaster
reached me in the form of statement
coming from Senator Quay, the most
astute political leader of this genera
ton of the wise men of all the world.
This statement was that the most curl
Gus thing about this campaign is that
men who ought to know better, and
who really do know better, have per-
sisted, day by day and week by week.
in vibrating from one extreme to the
other. AT one time they are sunk in
the depths of despair, because they are
thrilled with dreada nameless dread
that after all. despite all the figuring
of the expert politicians, something may
be going wrong, and that we may be
faced with not only free coinage of sill
yer, but with all the other propositions
of the Chicago platform, especially the
of the supreme court
by act of Congress. and the reassertion
OF states rights against federal author
ity. 1t is the latter planks of the Chi
cago platform which. since the speech
or eX-Presdent Harrison, have become
even more alarming that the PROPOSE
ton of free coinage of silver.
In other words, it has in these clos
ing days of the campaign become gen
orally recognized that the popocratic
managers have abandoned their single
issue of free silver. They have dropped
Coins Financial school for Radicals.
They demand now, not a debate upon
scientific question of currency. but
a social and political revolution. They
have forgotten or abandoned the cheap
and meritorious Harvey. and have
fiocked to the redder standards of Alt
geld, Debs and Tillman. Bryan's flying
career through Chicago. and his terri
BILE speeches there only emphasize GER
tain things he has already said in the
Northwest. One is almost forced to
think that Bryan's mind is giving way
under the strain of the circus perform
ances he has inflicted upon the nation.
as well as upon himself. This last
week of the Presidential battle is filled
with nothing but an effort by Bryan
himself and all his managers to create
a distinction between classes in this
country. They know all about such
distinctions in England. Any one who
has been across the water knows more
or less about them. But it is one of
the joys of life in Democratic North
stIfttIiCd, DIT ledSt III lfldt part the
northern continent which is controlled
by the Stars and Stripes. to discover no
such distinctions. Such. at least. is the
theory of the usual contracts of our
ordinary daily life. All this superficial
equality of intercourse, business and
social, between man and man, particu-
larry as such intercourse concerns poll
tics, Mr.. Bryan. under the baleful in
nuence of Altgeld, has now set himself
to destroy. His whole attitude has be
come one opposed to the very spirit of
this republic. Instead of pleading as
he pretends. the cause of down trodtlen
Bryan follows Altgeld in a
malicious and sinister design to draft
into a Wat Tyler army all the discon-
tented hoboes of the land. Should he
the only logical result would
be social disorder and governmental
mal-administration so unbearable that
the traditional Man on horseback would
be needed to establish a dictatorship
as pathway to the restoration of our
republic Nobody wants
that to happen. Even the potential
Man on Horseback-and his figure does
not yet even seem limned upon any flu
ture horizon-does not long for such
perilous power.