The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1898-04-03

| Now?
| Evidently that celebrated edifce has
fallen on foul days! Washington built
il. the elder Adams opened it, and it has
| been in its time the home of heroes.
Americans Of quick honor and of high
| resolve have dwelt there. Statesmen
| like Jefferson and Lincoln have given it
as their address. Patriots like Jackson
| and the silent Grant, who wOuldelive in
the red front of war for their country s
credit, have walked its halls as masters.
| But those days were of the long ago.
| Then the nation was run as a republic
now it is conducted as a corner grocery.
| Then a Jefferson framed IA declaration
| of independence; now it would be
! written by stock ticker.
And Wall Street would get the tip
and make millions in bear movement
| due of Concord and Bunker Hill.
Verify! the White House decays. Once
| an American might point it to foreign
| sightseers without shame
But not lately.
Within our own time it has been once
! d sty and now a mouse cage.
| Geography once combined with acct
dent, and these added themselves to poll
| tics. The White House as vile result
became the lair of thing all abdomen
and ambition; n creature who, with the
head of hog and the heart of hog,
| constructed an existence like unto an
isoscoles triangle, whereof the points
were marked respectively by bottles, by
ballot boxes and by bundles of money.
This was huddle of years ago. The
| sun went down on that days disgrace
only to rise on White House ignobility
in another form. A hog wandered into
| obscurity and a white mouse took its
place. The grunts of the one were. sup
| planted by the squeaks of the other as
| Presidential utterances.
| Of these, one was the dishonor of the
| Democrats. the second is the infamy of
| the Republicans Ignobility in this
| White House behalf is as an account
| thus balanced between the parties.
| But it all makes occasion to ask
| Americans: What deem you of your
| White House in these latter craven days,
money soaked aud muddy with greed:
| In this time of Spanish insult and of
| white mouse submission the Republic
| cans, stung by patriotism, are roaring
as might a party of lions.
Why do you roar. o lions?
| You anointed white mouse as your
| king True, your paw as it crowned him
was Hanna-guided. But your eyes were
| open. You could not surely look for
| aught leonine from a white mouse.
| No, your woe is fruit of your own fault.
| Hanna, that willy, strong, constituencies,
rapacious gorilla of politics, made a
| cats paw of you.
| And you let him.
| Now that you burn and smart with
| the ill-fame Of Mckinley's present
| courses, you roar. That is all right;
roar: but also have the grace to repent.
| Why did You elect piece of personal
property to the Presidency Why did
you put private chattel at the head of
| public affairs? You were told on this
very page in these very columns, of the
| Mckinley syndicate-Hanna, Herrck
and Day. Worth $4,000, Mckinley
| had signed notes to the sum of S11S,0O0
| in secret These were secretly negotj-
| ated among a score of banks, none of
whom knew of any Mckinley obhga-
| tions save those its blindness discounted.
| The crash of the Walker failure came.
| Mckinley was engulfed. The syndicate
| Hanna, Herrick and Day-fshed him
| out Of bankruptcy dripping with dubious
| debt. They paid the S11S0O0; they took
| up the notes. These are still eXtant, as
| this is read, in Herrick's safe in Cleve-
| land. They are as vivid and Of as lively
a vogue as any other unpaid paper of
| which the Law Merchant ever took cog
| nizance. Why, mani Hanna. Herrick
| or Day. or all three, could clap suit at
/ law on your white-mouse President at
| this moment, and not only take judgment
| against him, but disagreeably force him
| To explain business method which,
| worth $4,000. floats paper to the sum
| of $11S,000, invokes bankruptcy and
fools band of little purblind banks to
| the verge of RUM
And So O roaring Republican lions full
| of wrath against the white mouse in the
| White House, you have none but your
| selves to blame. You knew all these
| things at the st. Louis convention: you
| knew them at the November polls: knew
| them as well then as You do now.
! And yet you installed this Matchmaking
| debt-owing white mouse President. Han
ma owned him like a horse; you knew
it and you put him in. Hanna drives
| him like horse and you roar with in
| dignant amazement.
| What did you think Hanna would do?
| What did you think the white mouse
| would do:
| Mckinley has received no Maine re-
| port; Mckinley has sent no coward note
| TO Spain, no craven message to Con-
| gress. Mckinley, homeless as pam Of
| dough, has done nothing, received moth
| ing. 1t is Hanna his owner his archi-
| tect; Hanna who paid his debts and
| holds his notes; Hanna, and that con-
tributing crew Of Wall Street and the
protected industries who put up those
! S1S,000,000 expended to elect him, who
received the Maine report and who took
| those coward backward steps at sight of
| Spain over which you roar.
| Still, it is never too late to mend. and
| YOU do well, o Republicans. to roar A
| Republican Congress, by a prompt de-