Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1900-11-05


voted to make General Grant President
for life. Whenever great party aban-
dons the landmarks and traditions OF
the fathers and launches out into new
and untried seats. you may not only,
fear but legitimate1y conclude that a
change in the form of government is at
hand. Fortunately the ablest and most
influential Republican of his day and
OF the era was opposed to this third
term movement, and warned his coun-
trymen against the danger of the en-
pire. This great leader, James G.
Blaine, established a literary bureau
with no other purpose than to defeat
the third term. Through the agency of
his literary bureau, Blaine disseminated
far and wide the belief that third
term meant the empire. We all re-
member when the Republican national
convention OF 1876 assembled, how the
New York Senator, with the imperial
curl around his majestic brow, stood
and gathered around him the devoted
band of 800 stalwart imperialists, who
voted forty-fve times for the empire
After Mr. Blaine had dotted the cos
tune of the political arena and donned
the sober gown of the historian, he
still adhered to his opinion, and in the
second volume of his Twenty Years in
Congress-, reiterates his sentiments ex-
pressed in the campaign Of 1876. Thus
did he defend the republic against
monarchy in 1876, as Thomas Jefferson
had done in 1900.
Now for the fifth time we find our
selves on the brink of another great
crisis in the march of our institutions.
l have shown you how the Republican
leaders ridiculed the dangers of i'm
perialism as mere campaign scare
crow, as unsubstantiai as the nursery
tales by which children are frightened
in their gymnasiums. We, who are
old enough to remember, will recollect
that the crisis of 1861 was encoun-
tered by many of our leaders with the
same spirit. The penetrating glance
| of the old mariner WI S1arsScJ danger
where the ardour of youth and the
| ignorance of inexperience see naught
but smooth sailing and prosperous
seas. Mr.. Mckinley greets the danger
signal with a Fourth of July outburst
of rhetoric. Says he: mo imperial
designs Turk in the American mind.
They are alien to American sentiment,
thought and purpose. The priceless
principles undergo no change under a
tropical sun. They go with the flag. "
What are "our priceless principles
which go with the flag? Are they COM
prised in the Declaration of Independ-
ence? AS we have seen, that does mot
enter the tropics at all. Are they to
DE found in the Constitution? Mr.. Nc
Kinley's committee on foreign affairs
reported and Congress so declares that
the Constitution does not enter the
island of Porto Rico, nor penetrate the
Philippine archipelago, except the
thirteenth amendment, abolshing
slavery. Now as, slavery has been
abolished in Porto Rico for several
years and never existed in the Philip
pines, here is a solemn administrative
declaration, supported by sundry Re-
publican ordinances, that the price
less principles of the Constitution do
not at all cover nor span our newly
acquired possessions. What, there
fore, becom1 of the presidential bonn
tbast that they go with the flag? When
the flag goes where it ought not TO go
it would be at least a consolation to
know that it carries with it our price
less American principles. But when
in the next breath we are told that it
carries neither the Declaration of In
dependence, nor the Constitution, we
are appalled, not more by the brazen
affrontery of an administration which