Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1897-04-29
THROUGH wITHn.
electors Are Disgusted with the re
publican Party.

electors Are Disgusted with the Re-
publican Party.
Defeat of the republican party, visited
ehemently and almost universally at re-
cent local elections, was not caused
solely by a feeling on the part of electors
that promises OF prosperity had not
been realized. The revulsion, signal
and general as it was, sprang from more
reasonable motives. It is true that the
republican party made loud promises
of prosperity. With the mere election
of Mckinley confidence would be re-
stored. capital would seek investment
il business activities, chimneys would
smoke and labor would be remunera-
lively employed. Nothing of the kind
has come, but as intelligent electors
knew that it did not lie within the power
OF any president or party to make good
times, no great weight has been at
tached to the failure of republican
prophecy. There is substantial and
reasonable ground for the electors dis
content. He did not look to the repub-
lican party for performance of the i'm
possible, but he did imagine that it
might reduce the burdens of govern
ment, and that in congress and in the
state legislatures it could at least be
clearly and honest.
What is found?
Instead of reduction of taxation it is
found that the republican party brings
congress together in special session for
the purpose of increasing taxation, and
will allow no other business to be done
while it discusses ways and means to
help manufacturers at the expense of
consumers. The importer is threatened
with retroactive legislation, the bust
ness OF the country is thrown into dis
order, doubt and harrassment are Wis
tied upon merchants in the effort of the
republican party, which promised to
restore prosperity, to get at the pockets
of the people with the most drastic
tariff enactment ever attempted by an
American congress.
What is the performance OF the re-
stored republican party in such legisla-
lures as are in session. We may take
Illinois, for example. Where the par
tvs work is not merely partisan, as in
the attempt, despite the plain mandate
of the constitution, to perfect reappor-
tionment bills, it is downright brazen,
shamefaced dishonesty. Both houses
ut Springfield are overwhelmingly re-
publican. They entertain Humphrey
bills, designed to diminish home rule
in the commercial metropolis of the
state, and to sell to greedy street car
companies, not for the benefit of the
state but for the benefit of themselves
and the ravenous, bribe-giving tram
companies, grants of inestimable value,
When not engaged in such rascality,
republican legislators are celebrat-
ing their return to power by fur
thering such reprehensible, socialistic
measure as the requirement that school
books shall be furnished at the common
cost. And they refuse assent to n meas
ure whereby can be raised the funds
necessary for the completion of the
drainage ditch, which is to give pure
water supply to Chicago, because they
cannot have the spending of the money.
Disguised with the dishonesty and
greed and incapacity of the republican
party, which signally triumphed last
November, electors all over the land are
taking the first opportunity to assert at
the ballot boxes their discomfort and
want of confidence. Return to democ-
racy, now well under way, will continue.
There is nothing more certain in the
future than that democracy will tri-
umph in Ohio next November, as it has
triumphed in the spring elections in
Chicago and Cincinnati, and as in 1898
it will triumph in the congressional
elections.
Of course the same old dishonest cry
for democratic aid to tariff-making
party will come from the republican
camp. But the country knows, to its
cost, that there is more evil in republi-
can ascendancy than in any possible
outcome of the currency question.-Chi-
cago Chronicle.