Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1900-03-10
AK7f-EXpANS/OKiS7S WEAKENING.

AK7/-EXPAHS/ORfS7S WEAKENING.
If the policy of expansion was wrong
six months ago it is wrong today; If
right then, it is right now. The lapse of
time has not affected the merits of the
proposition, viewed from an ethical
standpoint, yet there has been a marked
change in the attitude of the democratic
party. The ~unregenerated copperheads
and bowling dervishes who were fight
ing the administrations expansion pol
lev with all the vigor at their
as gentle as the lambkins that gambol
on the green. A little while ago there
were not enough adjectives in the Eng
lish language to properly express the
contempt in which President Mckinley
was held by every stuffy little fapdoodle
bourbon organ throughout the land. But
now these periodical ti~rebrands have
cooled off, not in their hatred of the
president and the successes which his
administration has achieved, but IN
their ardor to maintain the reasonable
attitude assumed at the beginning of
the Philippine war. They have heard
from the people.
In the south, where the democratic
strength chiefly lies. expansion has made
such Roadway of late as to dumbfound
the leaders Of that party who had out
lined neutrality-suspicious. for the para
mount issue of the campaign. Senator
Morgan, the war horse of the democracy,
made his senatorial campaign on the
declaration that he believed in expan-
sion, and despite the fears of his friends
won out on that proposition. Now comes
John Temple Graves. the noted demo-
cratic orator of the Atlanta Journal, who
has served as presidential elector for
his party, and whose standing as a
democrat of ability and influence none
can question, with the declaration hat
he has seen a new light on the expansion
question. He says:
On the 4th day of July, 1s9S-the day
after Cervera's Instruction. was the
orator of the Jefferson celebration at
Augusta, Ca, and expressed an earnest
opposition or moral grounds to the per-
manent holding of territory in the Phil
ippines or Cuba.
Why have I changed my opinion since
st time? Because conditions have
changed and the point of view is ma
terially altered and enlarged. Among
all the voices great or small that are de-
manding so loudly that we should not
hold on in the Philippines I have not
heard one of them describe a reasonable
honorable and practicable way in which
we can let go. For the time being it is
absolutely imperative that we should
hold on. and no wise man can limit the
time. the way or the conditions under
which we could safely and dutifully
withdraw to our own credit or to the
real and permanent welfare of the is
lands.
/ accept expansion as a fact-an &C
complished fact. 1t is no longer a ques
ton. We have already expanded. Ii
advance of the political action of thu
democracy, l protest against the folly
antagonizing the great world movement
now under way. Whatever the agitator!
may declare, / have good reasons to be
lieve from wide travel and contact will
the people all over the country that tn,
great body of American citizenship is IL
favor of expansion. I know that the ma
NS"Oo III d4lu lHc lllOukllllu
men of the south hold this view.
The democracy's chances of success
for the coming campaign are not par
ticularly radiant, nyway and to as
sumo a position of violent opposition t.
the Greater America is simply to hol,
open arms to disaster.
Graves is but one of many. Hearst O
the democratic New York Journal ha
all along tried to persuade his party t
give up it's fight against expansion. TIL
more far-sighted democrats foresee tn
possible loss of several of the souther
states if they press their opposition t
h expansion idea too far. Without ex
pansion, n the commercial growt
which it implies, the Nicaraguan cans
would be IN impossibility, and withou
that canal the south can never attai
the greatness and the influence and TIL
prosperity to which it aspires. But re
Rrenchment On that issue is not alon
confined to far-sighted democrats. Eve
such newspapers as the Anacond
Standard have pulled in their horns
and sing diminuendo when they touc
the expansion key&