The western recorder., 1898-06-23
Democrats Hunting a
Platform.

whether 1t is a result caused by
the defeat of the fusion ticket in
Oregon or slow return of sense
after the stunning defeat of two
years ago is not clear, but the
Democratic leaders seem at last to
be seriously engaged in searching
for platform that is not Organism
and a leader that ia not Bryan.
Moreover the search is being ac-
lively prosecuted at Washington.
and in wandering, uncertain way
the Democrats in Congress are en-
gagged in it.
According to the latest reports
from the capital the program of
policy outlined for the national
Democracy is to be one of opposi-
ton to territorial expansion, to the
increase of army and navy, to a
British alliance and to every
thing which they call "imperial-
ISM That no party in the nation
favors Imperialism, and no alliance
with Great Britain is under con-
sideration does not matter in the
least to the platform seekers; they
intend to get Democrats out of the
slough of Organism somehow and,
seeing no other way to do it, they
propose to set up a bugaboo and
scare them out.
The Richmond Times is one of
the influentitl papers OF the party
which warmly commends the poll
cy. 1t exclaims with something
of Joy: Happy thought this, and
happy the Democratic party if it
shall formulate a platform with
that great principle as nucleus,
abandoning its fee silver and Pop
ulistic heresies generally and re-
turning to the good old democratic
doctrine of attending to our own
affairs and keeping ourselves safe
from all foreign entanglements."
Nothing, however, is ever done
in n democratic camp with unan-
unity. No matter how joyfully
some democrats may greet a pro-
posed policy there arc always 9TH
ers. In this instance there are n
good many others. There are
democrats in Congress who believe
the party has made bigger blum
der on war issues than it made on
the financial question. There is
the exuberant Lewis of Washing
ton, for example. who attributes
the defeat of his party iu Oregon
to the war rather than to the sill
yer plank in the platform. He is
quoted as having snid in a recent
interview on the subject: 1--WE
dragged the republicans into this
war thinking we had digged pit
for our neighbor. We have got it
in the neck, where the chicken got
the ax." Lewis, Of course, was in
dulging in large, loose talk when
he declared his party had dragged
the republicans into war. The
contest with Spain has not been
the result of dragging of any kind.
The demand for the overthrow of
Spanish despotism in this hemi-
sphere was the spontaneous out
burst of an indignant people whose
patience. long worn, was finally
exhausted by the destruction of
the Maine. Nevertheless Lewis
was right in holding that his party
has gone wrong ON the war. This
country is not going to support a
party which denoupces every ac-
tion of the government in the
prosecution of the war MS ten
dency to Imperialism. Toe people
can pardon opposition to the gold
standard more quickly than an OPP
position to the government itself
in a war with foreign land.
Never was there better illus
tration of the blind leaders of the
blind than in the democratic camp
at this juncture. The very men
who are trying to lead the party
away from the slough OF Organism
are conducting it to n deeper
slough on the other side of the road
San francisco Call