Amador ledger., 1900-10-19
P1rH OF POLITICS.
BY ARTHUR J. P1L1sBuRY. }

Two removes from the Saviour Of
men. One remove from the putative
father of Democracy, Thomas jefferson,
the partisans of Mr.. Bryan have come
to hold in revered estimation Republi-
cans long time dead. They love to
contrast the Republicans of our day
with the Republicans of yore. They
venture to affirm that the mantle of
Lincoln has fallen upon Bryan, and
they would doubtless like to have the
people infer that the toga which en-
twined the form of Roscoe Cenkling
now adorns the ample proportions Of
Mr.. Bryan's chief lieutenant, Richard
Croker, of New York City politics:
that James g. Blaine lives again in the
person of Charles A. Towne, that
Charles Sumner is reincarnate in Bailey
OF Texas, that Grant lives again in
Jones of Arkansas, John A. Logan in
Altgeld of Illinois, and Dick Yates in
Stephen M. White of California. But
their chiefest love is bestowed upon
Abraham Lincoln, as well it may be.
SO long as the big and little lights of
the new Democracy keep before their
eyes in admiring veneration the great
and glorious dead who gave their lives
to the nation, through service in the Re-
publican party, we need not despair of
their Americanism or their economic
and political salvation. No man ever
loved Lincoln who was not himself
worth trying to save.
But there are men who read Holy
Writ, not that they may find things
good and profitable for doctrine, but
that they may discover things to cavil
at and that they may find proof texts to
Justify bad causes. There are reasons
for suspecting that Mr.. Bryan has been
searching the scriptures of Lincoln in
quest of proof texts to bolster bad causes
and not that the life of Lincoln might
illume the soul of Bryan. Lesser lights
In the new Democracy have been fol-
lowing their champions pernicious ex-
ample. This is irreverent, unfortunate
and dishonest. 1t is irreverent because
it tends to weaken the influence of the
sublimest figure in modern history. It
Is unfortunate because it stands betwixt
the men who do it and economic saliva
ton. 1t is dishonest because it sets
snares for the feet of the people who
put their trust in Bryan and his parti-
sans and may bring evil upon them.
The conduct of these men merits right
eous condemnation.
They quote Mr.. Lincoln as declaring
that ALL men are created free and equal,
not some men, but ALL men, and they
draw the inference that Mr.. Lincoln
would therefore most certainly hold that
the Fihpinos should be free and indie
pendent, without waiting to learn the
rudiments of elf-government. Mr..
Lincoln himself did not carry the doc
trine so far. In his mastery discussion
with Stephen A. Douglas, Mr.. Lincoln
defined the right to "life, liberty and
the pursuit of happiness, as finding its
equivalent in the fright of the colored
man to eat the bread which his own
hands earn" and asserting that in that
regard "he is our equal" Mr.. Lincoln
did not favor the immediate enfran-
chisement of the negroes without prep
aration for citizenship. In 1864 he
authorized the rehabilitation of the
government of Louisiana and favored
its recognition as State in the Union
when it had adopted constitution re-
pudiating secession, avowing its adher-
ence to the Union and recognizing the
emancipation of the negro, but without
having given him the right of suffrage,
but having guaranteed him equal school
privileges with the whites. President
Lincoln, like President Mckinley, be-
ieved that the American school house
must prepare the way for seh-govern.
ing citizenship.
There are gentlemen, too, supporting
Mr.. Bryan who have the assurance to
call themselves Lincoln Republicans, !"
as contradistinguished from Mckinley
Republicans, but if they were Repubi-
cans at all in Lincoln's day it was their
opposition to secession, or their faith in
the element of fat, that was in the
greenback, that caught them aud not the
spirit of Lincoln's political apostleship.
There have been Democrats of diverse
sorts, but there has not been, and is not,
more than one sort of Republican, and
that is just plain Republican. Lincoln
was just plain Republican and those
who are not just plain Republicans are
not Republicans at all and will vote for
Bryan or some other agitator of pre-
tended reform.
Abraham Lincoln was protectionist.
These latter day alleged Lincoln Repub.
icans are free traders.
Abraham Lincoln sanctioned the
founding of the National banking sys.
tenn and commended it highly. These
new tangled pretenders to a Lincoln
Republicanism denounce the National
banking system as the embodiment of
financial Imperialism and capitalistic
greed.
Abraham Lincoln was broad in his
construction of the constitution of this
republic. The so-called Lincoln Repub-
icans are narrow and hair-splittinc in
their construction of the constitution.
Abraham Lincoln was man of action.
These pretended lovers of his quality of
Republicanism spend their time and
brain substance in unproductive dis
QUESTION over what Mr.. Lincoln fitly
characterized as "pernicious abstrac-
tions."
Abraham Lincoln believed in stongly
centralized government, and not only
believed in it but made the government