Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1898-02-03

sound democratic editorials contained the fouoE-
ing under the head Hanna Reigns"
When the awful news of President
Lincoln's assassination reached New
York an excited multitude assembled
before the bulletin boards in Printing
House Square. A handsome. fair
faced young soldier took an improvised
platform to address the people. He
counseled order and peace. At the
conclusion of a singularly clear and inn
pressive address, the burden of which
was that our institutions had not
crumbled when the chief magistrate
was slain, he raised his eyes to heaven
and exclaimed, "God reigns! The
republic still lives!' The orator was
James A. Garfield, himself destined to
be president and to fall by the hand of
demented assassin.
And now comes Mark Hanna, BIAS
pheming God and desecrating the
memories of Lincoln and Garfield by
wretched and insolent parody of that
noble and inspiring exclamation origin
ally uttered to avert a grevious national
calamity and to impress a solemn and
important truth upon the public mind.
Having secured by one base means or
another seventy-three votes Just
enough to elect and none to spare-he
hastened to telegraph President Nc
Kinley, "God reigns, and the republi-
can party still lives" 1t might be
supposed that the reign of God would
continue as before without either Mr..
Hanna's permission or his proclama-
ton. 1t was kind and condescending
in him, however, to recognize the fact
and give in that moment of his supreme
personal triumph the comfortable
assurance to his humble dependent in
the White House that he had no present
intention to elbow Divine Providence
from its place in the government of the
universe.
We ought also, probably, to thank
the modest and forbearing Mr.. Hanna
for his considerate revision of the
historic Garfield phrase, in which he
substitutes the republican party for the
republic. The old republic was, evil
IDENTIFY, not in the great mans mind
He was thinking only of Hanna and
Hanna's party. Indeed the republic
has been SO seriously damaged by the
proceedings in 1896 and 1897 under
Mr.. Hanna's direction as hardly to be
recognizable. The republic of today
certainly resembles very little the re-
public OF the constitution, in which
there was no appearance of a governing
class, in which taxes were levied ex.
clusively for public objects, never for
private enrichment, and in which men,
not money, were supposed to rule. If
the public had not perished and its
restoration become impossible it was
not the fault of Hanna. At all events
his government by the trusts and for
| the trusts is, for the time being, in full
| and obvious operation.
Nor does the republican party of
Lincoln and Garfield live any mure
than the republic. The likeness has
been utterly stamped out under the
| heavy heels of the boodlers and the
bosses. There is no republican party.
1t accomplished its original mission long
since and passed into history. Those
who have usurped its name and presume
| to follow its fated banners are the mere
| bodyguard of trusts and monopolies,
the servants of foreign and American
syndicates, the plotters of sordid treason
against the republic of our fathers and
of system of industrial slavery for the
masses which has already produced in
calculable human misery and is destined
to produce much more if the party of
Hanna shall be permitted to, have its
way.
Mr.. Mckinley would have under.
stood the famous message just as well
had it ignored God as it did the repub-
lie. and read, "Hanna reignsI The
Hanna party still ivesI''