The record-union., 1896-07-12
ARTHUR McEWEN TALKS
ABOUT
INTERESTING MATTERS.
Troubles Of the Leading Politicians
The Popularity Of Judge Campbell.

the girl graduate who asserted In her
essay that she stood on the verge OF
shoreless sea. They don't know in the
least what is going to happen. Every
body who is candid admits that nothing
can be forecast until it is known what
the Populists are going to do with refer-
ence to the Democratic nomination
There are the regulation party boasts.
the regulation party preparations lot
ratification and, of course, the regula-
tion assumption of confidence. But all
this is now devoid of real meaning. The
Democrats know that they have sailed
into new waters where the old charts
are useless to the navigator. To do them
Justice, the majority seem to be glad of
1t, to be stimulated by the prospect or
strange adventures. It is far from be-
ing a united party. At this writing the
nomination has not yet been made at
Chicago, but the out-and-out free Sill
yer platform has been adopted. This
puts a good many eminent local Demo-
Gratis in a, position analogous to that oc-
cupied by many eminent RepublcanS
when the St. Louis Convention declared
for gold. The readiness with which en-
inent local Republicans bowed to the
party mandate has furnished one or the
most impressive instances or the value
of discipline ever seen in California poll
tics. The entire Republican press OF the
city, long enthusiastic for free coinage,
at once turned right about face and
''stood i'm with a cheerful vlgor that
took away the breath of people who re-
tain the habit of looking to the press for
guidance in political opinion The "Ex-
aminer," which is the only daily in San
L f11A
Democracy, is in happier case than
were its obedient Republican contem-
poraries. It has nothing to recant,
since it never has committed itself on
the monetary question. Mr.. Hearst,
however, takes an interest in it, for he
advertises a prize for the best essay on
the probable results of free coinage, and
has arranged to take a vote of the State,
by means of coupons, on the issue. His
own coupon, when filled out and signed,
will not, it is safe to predict, be pub
lished in fac siInile in the Examiner.
1t is a queer experiment this of carrying
a newspaper through a Presidential
campaign without editorial opinions.
The silver Democrats are incensed and
call the Examiner Sordid and cow
ardly and a hoodOo but they forget that
the Examiner" presents itself very
differently to them from what it does to
its ingenious proprietor. They think the
leading aim of its existence ought to be
to help the Democratic party; he re-
CARDS it as a business investment, which
has come to give him more trouble than
pleasure Since he bought the New
York Journal" which adlnires Whit
hey and indorses his financial views, he
has lost interest in the Examiner"
and forbidden it to have opinions, lest
subscribers be lost And as a further
preparation for the Presidential cam
paign there has been a reduction of the
staff and a heavy cut in salaries. The
Democrats may get as indignant as
they please at the spectacle of a Demo-
cratic paper lodging all the isrs and
declining to cross swords with Repub-
lican journals on any provocation, but
they may as well reconcile themselves
TO the truth, which is that the Exam
iner'S" sole function now is to make
money for Mr. Hearst and help to fill
the pocket which the New York Jour
nal' empties.
The majority Of the influential local
Democratic leaders are gold men-Mc-
Nab, Daggett, Pond, and the weighty
personages of the Junta in general The
Republicans cherish the expectation
that most gold Democrats will quietly
vote for Mckinley. On what this ex-
pectation rests unless a belief in the
superior earnestness of gold Democrats
over silver Republicans it is not easy
to surmise. Take Colonel Samuel NJ.
Shortridge, for example. Prior to the
assembling of the st. Louis Convention
his grand voice awoke silver echoes in
all our mountain ranges; with him the
periods of speech and the intervals of
silence were in the ratio of 16 to j, and
his soul was in arms against Wall and
Lombard streets, and his scornful rhet-
oric respecting the Rothschilds must
certainly have reached across the Allan
tic. He was not even for Mckinley,
but with General Spreckels by his side,
and the Cali to back him, went to st.
Louis to place Allison in nomination.
Behold him now. He bows to the will
of the majority, he and his house, and
the house of Spreckels likewise. The
Colonel knows his party duty and does
it-not haltingly, blushingly or sneak
ingIy, but boldly, gladly, proudly, ma
Jestically. Podsnap himself could not
more imperatively have waved aside
any subject that was displeasing to him
than the ColonePs hand sweeps behind
him the silver question. There is, the
Colonel finds, no such issue before the
American people, and least of all be-
fore the people of California. What
Colonel Shortridge wants. speaking both
for himself and General Spreckels in
his celebrated apartments in the Palace,
is protection, employment and high
wages for American labor. Sir" says
the Colonel, "let US first open the fac
tory and then 1 win discuss with you the
character of the money in which the
wages of the honest artisan shall be
paid. Say no more. At crisis like
this, men of intellect, practical men,
patriotic men do not pause to debate
distractions. Say no more"
Now If Shortridge-a name synony-
NOUS with all that is fixed in conviction,
loyal to principle and Indifferent to
mere expediency-can thus at the behest
OF party turn his back on silver, why
should it be thought that lesser men who
have this misfortune to be anti-silver
Democrats will not, when their party
bids, shed parting tear or two and bid
farewell to the gold standard? We have
already seen J. J. Dwyer do this. Had
he not done it he couldn't have gone as
a delegate to the Chicago Convention
and he couldn't have been elected a
member of the Democratic National
Committee. Speaking generally. the
leaders of both parties in California can
be depended on to subscribe to anything
that is regularly offered as party doc
trine. They are orthodox to the back