Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1900-11-29
A Political Review.
EDrrOR ABERDEEN HERALD:

Now that the great battle is over, ana
the party of trusts and Imperialism is in
control, we hear great deal about "past
Mistakes" and future reorganization
of the democratic party"
so far as issues and platforms are con-
cerned, do not believe that the demo-
cratic party made any mistakes in the
campaign just closed and it surely made
no mistake in the selection OF standard
bearer when it nominated the matchless
Bryan. If it was "self-evident truth,
one hundred and twenty-four years ago,
that "all men are created free and
equal" and governments derive their
Just powers from the consent OF the gov
erned," it is self-evident truth in 1900,
and it will be four years hence. The
laws of truth and justice are like the laws
of the Modes and Persians, they are UNI
changable--"Truth crushed to earth
will rise again."
TO seek new issues-something to at.
tract the fancy of voters 80 as to win an
election and get office-may do for politl-
cal trimmers, but refOrmers and patriots
have a nobler purpose and higher aim.
If the democratic party-the allied
forces that marched together under the
Bryan banner-made any mistake in the
last campaign, it was the mistake of be-
lieving that the American people had
enough true patriotism and sense of jus.
tice to rise above the sordid plane OF
selfishness and do right without stopping
to ask themselves evil it pay?"
l must confess that was optimistic
enough to believe they would.
We have seen Mr. Mckinley waging
war of extirmination upon an alien, un-
assimilable, unwilling and oppressed
people forcing upon them taxation with
out representation, which our fOrefathers
declared was tyranny, subjecting the
Filipinos to the same conditions that
Geo. III forced upon the American col
onists and using the same specious argu-
ments in justification of his course, and,
if we are to Judge by letters which have
been received from our soldiers in the
Philippines, conducting war OF savage
cruelty out-rivaling that OF Weyler or
the Duke of Alva.
|, with thousands of my countrymen,
believed that our people, seeing these
things, would, by decisive vote, hurl
from his high position the man who had
usurped authority to carry on such a
war, unwarranted by the constitution
and abhorent to every instinct of justice
and humanity.
But on the contrary laborers, farmers,
artisans, business men and preachers
(there were thousands of noble excep-
tions in all of these classes, God bless
them y deceived by the echo of the de-
lusive song of the "full dinner pail" and
many Of them wearing a trust-embroi-
dered patch on the seat of their trousers,
went to the polls and voted against the
best friend the common people in Amer
lea ever had, and made the crime of the
century, which had heretofore been the
crime Of one man, national crime.
But we should have expected nothing
else. 1t has always been go. We boast
of freeing our slaves, but forget that for
years and years VIM. Lloyd Garrison
wrote, and talked, and pleaded with our
people to be just. That Wendell Philips,
in thunder tones, portrayed the horrors
of human slavery. That Harriet Beecher
Stowe stirred the hearts of millions with
"Uncle Toms Cabin" and still slavery
was not abolished. Why? 1t would not
''pay" to abolish it.
Rebellion came, it would not "pay" to
have half the nation secede, we could go
to war to compel the seeding states to
"pay." The abolition of slavery was
|
free the negro so long as it would "pay"
to keep him in bondage.
But the negro was freed, justice came,
though late.
So 1 believe the American people, now,
will not do right regarding the Philip
pines, because they believe it will not
''pay" to do right. But when those
numbered hordes from Asia, as result
of this heartless war of subjugation, shall
swarm upon our shores as the Saracens
once swarmed over Europe, when our
labOrers shall be compelled to compete
with coolie laborers who regard fifteen
cents per day a fair wage, when our
farmers must compete in open market
with the products Of the cheapest labor
in the world, when merchants shall learn
that Asiatic laborers will not purchase
their goods and our own laborers, re-
duced to an Asiatic wage level, cannot,
when our preachers shall learn what
they ought now to know, that bad whisky
and dunn dunn bullets do not make
christian converts nor open up vast fields
for successful missionary labors, and
that the "civilization" which is brought
about by standing armies has always
been curse instead of blessing, then
perhaps our people will try to atone for
the terrible crime they have committed.
Perhaps then those who have helped to
begin the new century with the continu-
ance of this national crime, may hear
the fateful knocking at the gate Of Mac
beth and try, like the demented Lady Of
Macbeth, to wash the blood-stains from
their hands, but probably only because
it will "pay."
There is no need OF new issues. Those
who with clean hands and clean con.
sciences followed the intrepid Bryan
have nailed their colors to the mast, and
there they must float till victory over
wrong, injustice and oppression is won.
j. A. GILKEy.
Advertised Letters.
Following letters remain uncalled fol
in the Aberdeen postoffice for the weel