Akron daily Democrat. [volume] (Akron, Ohio) 1892-1902, 1899-06-05

which stamp this branch of the Re
publican platform as the monumen-
tai political fraud of the season.
Listen to them. For four years past
the Attorney General of Ohio has
been "a Republican: Monnett is his
name. l am careful thus to intro
recognition of him or his work is
concerned, the late state convention
was an utter stranger to both. He
has been long time in the courts in
vain effort to enforce, in some de-
gree, the very law which the Repub-
lican convention demands shall be
executed. He has thus worked
single-handed and alone, and of
course, with but Indifferent success.
The marvelis is that, under the depress-
ing circumstances of the case. he has
had any success at all. In and
through it all, in his heroic but luck
less fight, has he had one word of
cheer or encouragement from one Re-
publican politician, or from single
administration organ? Did the
President ever send him a telegram of
congratnlation as he did Mark Hanna
at the conclusion of the operations
which landed the latter in
the Senate? Has the Cleve-
land Leader, or any of its news
paper ''titmen" throughout the state
even lent him a word of commenda-
tion for trying to put in force law
which by their platform they now
say ought to be executed? Did a
Republican State convention ever
congratulate him in his attempt to
do that which that of last week pre-
tends should be done,-as that same
convention congratulated Mr.. Nc
Kinley for letting down the bars of
the civil service to the spoilsmen?
Is it not a fact, on the contrary, that
his every effort has been hampered,
and his every step clogged, along the
line which this hypocritical plank
processes that it was right for him to
pursue, with an ill-concealed sneer,
repellant silence, or an open deris
ion? That such is the case is too no.
torious for dispute.
But bring these platform-making
gentlemen to yet a nearer test of sim
cerity. This same Attorney General
was a candidate before the same
convention last week for another
nomination to the same office. His
candidacy was announced in speech
eloquent in its commentator of his
work in executing the very law
which the convention had but just
resolved must be executed
for the well-being of the people, and
what, do you suppose, was the re-
sponse which the Hanna and Cox
combine permitted to be given? Was
it the glad cry from the 800 assem-
bled throats, of well done, good and
faithful servant p Not much! He
got Just one vote out of the 800.
That is to say, for doing his
best in that which that same
body of representative Repub-
licans had within a few hours SOL
emnly declared was fit and necessa-
ry thing to do, he received the approx
al of one eight hundredth part of
them. What spectacle for men and
angels! A facetious friend of mine
while in college, once chose as the
subject of his oration: "Radicalism
when gets my drinks, conservatism
when I'm asked to pay for 'em''. So
we have in Ohio a party which
is down on trusts in platforms, but
not in courts; which rebukes trusts
on paper, but not in the makeup of
its ticket; which denounces trusts
in the abstract, but thrives upon
them in the concrete. Can organized
hypocrisy well go further?
But 1 want to exhibit one more
proof of the enormity of trusts in the
eyes of the late co INVENTION. For the
office of Attorney General there was
still another candidate before it. 1t
was Chase Stewart of Springfield, a
lawyer of probity and repute, and
man whose eminent fitness for the
n omination in question will be con-
ceded on all hands. Now it so hap
pened that Mr.. Stewart was himself
the author of the Ohio antitrust
statute which the convention had
said must be enforced. 1t was a
natural thing to say: who so well
qualified to put in execution law as
he who framed it. He, of all others,
must know W hat it means, and can
present it to the courts most intelli-
gently and efficiently" Was he
nominated by this gathering of
paper-tigers-this assemblage of de-
nouncers of trusts with lip-service?
He received 80 votes. So it appears
that while 800 delegates, represent
ing the Republican party of Ohio,
are in favor of a platform denouncing
trusts, only 100, or one-eighth of the
whole, are on record favOring the
only two men in the State who have
ever done any practical thing