Arizona republican., 1899-10-12
PaRNIx. OCTOBER l2. 1899.
DEWEY AND GREELEY.

The New York World is engaged in
 the ridiculous business of booming Ad-
 miral Dewey as the democratic candi- date for president next year. The
 World does this in the face of Dewey s
 assertion that he would not take the office of chief magistrate, his insistence that he never was nor can be a candi- date for any office and that he is not
 qualified for the highest civil station
 in the gift of the people. The level head on the great sailors shoulders will prevent his making the error that crushed Greeley, and no amount Of democratic honey will swerve him for an instant Dewey will live in history as one of the greatest Americans of all time and he knows that a heated po- litical campaign even if resulting i'll his election to the presidency, and the mis- takes that he might make in the exec utive chair would only tend to detract from the glory he won in the field for which he was eminently fitted by tenn perament and education. But the sug- gestion of the World is so absurd that it does not call for a moments serious consideration The phase which must attract the greatest attention from ser ious thinkers is the tacit promise on the part of the democrats to build their platform so as to fit the candidates | It is a virtual confession that the party is at heart without principles except as they can be used to hoodwink voters. | This has been the case for generations and it became most pitiably conspicu- ous in 1872, when Horace Greeley, a l lifelong abolitionist, protectionist and supporter of the stars and stripes, be- came the candidate of a party whose main strength was in the unrecon- structed south and which had been a bitter and unrelenting opponent of the protective principle from the time Of Calhoun and MacDuffie. By shameless between the independents of that year, whose spokesman Greeley had become, and the democratic man agers the latter were either entirely silent or vague upon issues on which the records of the candidate and the party were at variance, and the de mocracy did just what it is now pro- posed by the World to do-fitted it's '.principles'' to the man who was looked upon as most likely to win. What the American people thought of the time-servers was shown by one of the most crushing defeats ever admin istered to any political bidders for SUD- port. Respected and honored as Grea- ley had been-even idolized by thou sands-he was terribly punished for his surrender to the exigencies of the time and to his ambitions, and the party that tried to use his weakness for it's | gain was ignominously whipped and doomed for more than a decade to a ] hopeless struggle to win back the lost confidence of the country. Yet it is suggested by a great journal ! that the same thing be done now in or l Ter to change next years sorry outlook [ into something like a hopeful chance. It proposes the nomination of a great .. admiral, who, if not a republican, I never had anything but republican an t -ecedents and republican connections ( and who, if the anecdote recorders tell ! he truth, has said some things about z he democracy quite as harsh as Gree f ey's most caustic and more famous ar I 'aignments of the party which he f mote with relentless vigOr during | most of his editorial career. We can hardly doubt that whatever Dewey's V political or economic beliefs the demo- t ,ratic party would gladly trim it's 1 blanks to suit him. But does any $ ane man even in that party suppose hat with Greeley's mournful fate be- e ore him Admiral Dewey would com a nit the blunder of the great journalist? [
 | Licensing the slot machines is not