The San Francisco call., 1898-08-10
"PLATFORM ! PLATITUDES. "

HE necessities of pinto campaign are forcing :. the Democratic bosses into series of contor- tions that are the envy of the boneless man in the circus.
 Since the Populiss nailed up their conditions for fusion the office-hungry brethren have had rocky road. The Populist programme of State commun- ism, irredeemable paper currency and destruction Of representative government is odious to every man educated in the Jeffersonian school that something must be done to sweeten the dose or nullify its effects
 = Down in San Mateo County the committee has settled the matter satisfactorily itself by declaring that men, rather than platform patitudes, have be- come public necessity in this political campaign. Therefore the committee lifts its united voice for Ma gure.
 There you have it. These men confess without blush that their past professions for free silver anything else, and their declarations of party prin- cples, were platitudes, fatness dullness and insipidity, the real juice of politics consisting in getting office, and the process being easier when incumbered by any pledges, principles professions It is proper that this plan should be followed in case of Maguire's nomination. It will enable him to be single in the city, income axer to the Popu lists and mixed taxer among the farmers where it becomes necessary to promise that their public load shall be frightened by shifting it to other shoulders He can be against government by injunction the front and in the mining counties, where his fav orte doctrine that the violator of judicial injunction shall be tried by jury of the locality where the of fe,se is committed will catch votes; while at Mary5 vile and Yuba City, in the Sacramento Valley and along the intervales of the Yuba and Feather rivers where the people live under government by injunc- tion he extol evidence of the highest judicial wisdom. In these localities he demonstrate the necessity of court having exclusive charge of en- -f
 Again, it introduces gamble into the matter that will outdo the various lotteries and games of chance in interest and excitement. Authenticated by plat form, principles pledges, the of the fusion party and its candidate will be so much in doubt as to be always a subject of wager The plan fits the candidate to perfection. In 1887 he announced in writing his permanent withdrawal from the Demo- cratic party because it had adopted the single tax and put all the burden of government on the land owner. In the spring Of 1888 he announced himself in his book Ireland and the Pope" as the champion of anti-Catholcism and called Pope Leo XIII "the serpent of the Vatican" In the fall of the same year he back in the Democratic party, though it still refused to adopt the single tax, and not long after found the religious platform soliciting the favor of the followers of Leo XIII. He was a gold standard man until 1893, when he switched for free silver and in ISo6 voted in the Chicago tion to unseat Weadocll as a Michigan delegate, whose head demanded by the A. P. A. He fought the bill for funding the debts of the Pacific roads and demanded their sale under foreclosure. When the Union Pacific to be foreclosed he fought that. Then when Huntington got his refunding bill through the Senate at the last session and single objection would have killed it in the House he stopped short and did not enter the deadly objection
 that would have defeated the measure It is not safe to trammel such with platforms pledges or principles. There IS no telling what he may want to do when he gets office There is thing that can be set down certainty, however He is like the needle to the pole in his fidelity to the Clan Gal agher Alter the Democratic victory of 1892 this fea- ture in his policy furnished McNab the material for of his Gaelic epigrams Several offices and ap- pointments tagging. Some asked McNab why the delay in filling them, and he replied They're waitin' for ship that's comin with another load of Gallaghers."