Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1900-04-12
CHAMP C[ARk'S LETTER
Prospects For Democracy
Continue to Improve.
PREPARING FOR CONFLICT.
RepublicansArrogant and Puffed
Up by Success.
PREPARING FOR CONFLICT.
BOUGHT BY MARX HAEEA's DOODLE

BOUGHT BY MARX HANNA's DOODLE
Think That the Long Suffering Peo-
pie VIII Stand Anything-The Cam-
els Back Near to Breaking-Defec-
tion of Webster Davis-Rhode Is
land Democrats AT Bunker Hill
Monument-The Idaho Outrages.
Especial Washington Letterl
Democratic prospects have improved
80 per cent in so days and are still i'm
proving. Two months ago it did not
seem to an impartial observer that we
had one chance in 20 of winning this
fall, but if the election were held next
week there can be little doubt that we
would achieve a great and sweeping
victory, electing a president, house
and senate. Since writing my last let
ter | have been in and through ten
states of the Union, not one of which
gave Bryan its electoral vote in 1896.
find that everywhere the Democrats
are full of hope, are girding up their
loins, perfecting their organization and
Furnishing their arms for the great
conflict of 1900. OF course they win
not carry all of the ten states to which
allude, but they will carry some of
them, and in the rest the Republicans
will know that they have been in a
fight.
On tho o+t,ar hapd @loo T3o,1,,t,i;oa ~,
are everywhere swapping and snarling
at each other. The old saying ''Whom
the gods would destroy they first make
mad" is peculiarly applicable to Re
publieans in the present exigeney of
their fate. Puffed up by success bought
with Mark Hanna's Doodle, they had
become so arrogant that they conclud-
ed that the long suffering American
people would bear all things, but the
Hay -Pauncefote treaty, the Porto Rican
tariff bill and the evident entente cor
dale existing between the administra-
ton and Great Britain were the straws
which broke the cameps back.
webster Davis and the Boern.
The action of Hon Webster Davis,
who has been touring South Africa
and investigating for himself, in re-
signing the assistant secretaryship of
state to go to lecturing for the Boer
cause will make Republicans have a
creepy sensation in the region of the
spinal marrow, for Davis is a Missouri
orator of approved capacity. For more
than three years last past he has been
put forward and doomed by the Repub-
lican press as the orator laureate of the
administration. That that same press
will endeavor to belittle him now and
discount his oratorical prowess l have
no doubt, but they win learn to their
sorrow that it Is too late. With his
emotional nature and his tongue of
fire l predict that Davis win set the
country wild on the lecture platform
on behalf of the Beers. Perhaps he
may force the administration to show
some sympathy for those brave and
heroic people who against such fearful
odds are fighting for their altars and
their fires, for their Lares and Penates,
for their wives, their children, their
homes, their native land. If he does,
Webster Davis will deserve well at the
hands of the American people.
l spoke before the Mohawk club in
Detroit and found the Democrats en-
thusiastic to a degree to warm the
cookies of ones heart. The general de-
moralization of Republicans over the
Porto Rican tariff bill, the Hay -Paunce-
fote treaty and other things, together
with exposures of corruption now be-
ing made of local Republican matters
in Michigan, give the Michigan Demo-
Gratis hopes of carrying the state. The
city and town April elections show
large Democratic gains and indicate
which way the cat viii jump in No
vember.
While 1 was lecturing before the fac
ulty and students of Michigan uniyer-
sity at Ann Harbor l received a tele-
gram from Senator James K. Jones of
Arkansas, chairman of the Democratic
national committee, urging me, really
ordering me. to so to Rhode Island and
make some speeches. which did.
l found the Little Rhody Democrats
fighting an up hill battle with astound-
ing fortitude and courage. They did
not win, The odds were too great,
but they waged a battle which shows
that they will ultimately redeem that
little midget of a state from the malign
reign of the Republicans. In my judg-
ment one can see Republicanism in its
worst estate in Rhode Island. They
have the unfairest apportionment for
legislative purposes to be found on the
American continent 1t is so arranged
that the city Of Providence, which con-
tains nearly half the population of the
state, has only one state senator out of
81 and only IL members of the lower
house out of r. The Democrats have
always a fighting chance of carrying
Providence. but not much of carrying
the outlying rotten boroughs. Ex-Goy-
ernor Davis told me that under the
outrageous appertionment it was so
fixed that about $4,000 people out Of
100000 elected a majority of both
houses of the state legislature, so that
over 100000 of the people of Rhode
Island are practically disfranchised for
legislative purpose and consequently
for the election of senators Of the
United States. The method of pro-
cedure as to the latter seems to be that
some very rich man boobies the small
boroughs, which enables him to buy q
seat among the conscript fathers at
Washington. Yet all these things are
done by the party which prates great
deal about a pure ballot and a fair
count and whose heart is always bleed
ing for the wrongs of the poor negro
down south. Why don't these hypo-
critics and corruptionists give the poor
white man of Rhode Island chance
for his political life?
Governor Davis also told me that
about 40 Republican multimillionaires
absolutely control the politics of the
state, another evidence Of the much
vaunted purity of the Republican par
ty. Some day somehow, that old anti
auated constitution and apportionment
will be busted. and men will have
their rights.
Still another sign of the love of lib
erty possessed and exhibited by Rhode
Island Republicans is the fact that
they still maintain and uphold prop-
erty qualification on the right Of snf-