The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-04-07
They're Afraid of Reed.

~ hangs a cloud no bigger than a
mans hand just now, but one
that may very likely be of ominous
proportions before next Thanksgiving
The Standard has found it interesting
to read the recent comment of the re-
publican press in relation to Speaker
Reed. 1t is plain to see that. in the
matter of the speakership election
when the next congress is organized,
Mr.. Hanna has not yet tipped his hand
in behalf of the administration. On
that account much of the Reed talk in
the republican press is the more attrac-
tive reading; it is not official The part
of it that is pretty severe on Reed uni
formly conveys the Inference unwrit-
ten of course, that 'all this criticism of
Reed doesn't count if the adminstra-
ton finally let's him be speaker again."
There's no love lost; President Nc
kinley has small reason for doing Reed
any friendly turn. Indeed, it is certain
that We're he Drawer and firmer man
and less a trimmer, Mr.. Mckinley
would have it right out with Reed, and
take the consequences, so far as they
will be brought to focus in the next
national republican convention. Reed
is always spiteful man, and always he
has had his elbows out toward those
who, he fancies, are in his way to polit-
cal preferment. He really thought, for
years, that he was a bigger man than
Blaine, and he didn't like it because
Blaine, hailing from Maine, was loved,
by the people
Presidential bees have been buzzng
SO long in Speaker Reeds bonnet that
whole swarms of them have lived in
vain and died off. In 1896 Reed made
up his mind that the presidential nom
ination must be his-forthwith he as
sumed that he could gavil the republi-
can party into submission to his will as
easily as he pounds the house of repre-
sentatives into surrender to his way of
having things done or left undone.
Hanna simply knocked Reed out with
one hand, when a ballot was taken in
the st. Louis convention; Reed had
miserable eighty-four votes out of a
total of 901.
Every man who keeps in the current
of Washington politics knows what has
been going on during the first half Of
the Mckinley administration. Some
times openly and often covertly. Mr.
Reed has done all that in his power lay
quietly to queer the presidents plans
He has spoken, under the rose, about
the president in terms that have been
styled irony but which were in fact a
revelation of spfteful spirit-if, in
deed, the speakers talk has not been a
betrayal of malice. Here is the way in
| which the most consistent administra-
| ton organ in the city of New York
presents the Indictment: Mr.. Reed
should have bowed respectfully to the
! will of the party which clearly said
that it did not want him for president.
But instead of doing SO, he has been
grouty and sore-headed, ever since 1896.
avoiding the white house, even when
| frequent and cordial overtures have
| been made with a view to consulting
him as to the course of pending legis-
lation. His propensity for sneers and
gibes, and his ingenuity in coming
witty though spiteful epithets, have ir
private conversation been directed
against the president personally, while
he has openly and in many instance:
successfully opposed measures to which
the administration, in its policy, and
the party in its platform We're irrevoca-
bly, committed"
Not many of the republican journals
however, are as candid as is the one we
have just quoted The whole admins
tration outfit thinks mean of Reed. but
the spineless, shifting, uresolute head
Of the administration is afraid to fight
Reed and. for all he had said and done
he may yet have the next speakership
for policy's sake, put right in his palm
with the suave compliments of Presi-