The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-10-05
A TRANSFORM ED CANDIDATE

A man who voted for Mckinley did
not promise thereby to vote for him
for a second term. A man entering an
office is always on probation. If he is
capable, honest, wise, true, patriotic.
submissive to law and is on the side
of the people he will do to trust, and
may be honored a second time He is
first on trial, and if he stands the test
we'll his fellow citizens nay so approve
of his course as to reward him by an
election to another term of official life.
Mckinley was put on trial SO soon
as he was elected. How has he stood
h test? Is he the same man, the
same official in 1900, that he was IN
derstood to be in 1896? Has he passed
through the fiery ordeal with no smell
of corruption upon his garments, with
no abuses in office staining his good
name, with no grave suspicion of Off
cial betrayal and usurpation resting
upon him? Is the man now being
coached by Mark Hanna, whose name
is a synonym for political p~rOfiigacy,
for Venality, for outrages upon the
people, the man that democrats
thought him to be when they helped
to install him in the presidential chair?
Who believes it? Not only is there no
true democrat who believes 1T, u
there is not a gold democrat in the land
that at heart regards Mckinley as a
safe, sound, worthy official who de-
--z-z- -1-1uroI ~ their confidence
and the assistance of their votes.
There are many republicans all over
the land who fear the despot in he
president and regard him as a plant,
weak man without steady and high
convictions. a ready tool of the money
power.
The Baltimore Sun was an earnest,
influential and able supporter OF NC
Kinley in 1896. 1t rejects him altogeth-
er now as utterly unworthy and is do
ing woman service for Bryan as the
far safer and better man. Loking
back to 1896, it says:
'sMr. Mckinley was then an untried
man.. 1t was as the champion OF SOUND
money that Sound-Money democrats
voted for him. There was no Spanish
war then in signt; no thought OF the
ForcibIe acquisition of Porto Rico or
the Philippines or of the payment OF
500 900, 900 to Spain for the privilege or
waging war upon her reVolted subjects
in the East Indies after we had Sc
cured a release from the Spanish yoke
for her insurgent subjects in CUBA. MT.
Mckinley had not then lmbrued ms
hands in the blood of S~paniards, OF
TSI;o;ao- ~ IF Chin9mpn- and. least
of all. in that of his fellOw-countrymen n,
uselesslv and cruelty sacrificed upon
foreign battIefields for the subjugatlon
of an inferior and alien race. a vote
for Mr.. Mckinley now Is very dlqIIer-
ant thing from a vote for MI. Mchln-
lev in 1896. Mr.. Mckinley Is now seek
ing a reelection which will necessarily
he an Endorsement, or at least a condo
nation. of all the acts of his admins
tration.'
1t finds nearly all the acts of his very
unfortunate and vicious administration
reeking with offences of a grave char-
acter. 1t speaks Of tits scandalous
waste of money, it's shameless prostl-
tuition to personal and partisan ends
of the powers of appointment and pa
tronage. it's habitual s~ubserviency to
soulless, %grasping corporations sano
trusts. OF all these things Mr.. NC
Kinley was guiltless four years ago.
He was, as we have said, an untr1ed
man. 1t was impossible then 10 know
with certainty what manne of presi-
dent he would make, st..l less what
record his administration would leave
behind it. Democrats who vote for him
now can plead no UGH ignorance"
There will be found no real demo-
Gratis supporting him. He has been lit
orally weighed in the balances and
found wanting. His character is most
grievously smirched, as his acts have
been of the most reprehensible and Of
ten dangerous kind. Says e~x-Secretary
of State Olney, In his very able n
unanswerable arraignment of McKin-
ley, to vote for him now will mean
that the American people, having in
their president h sole representative
of the nation as a whole, approve OF
a national executive who fails to up
hold the dignity and the independence
OF his great office; who exercises its
functions in s~ubservience both to other
branches Of the government and to the
clamor Of special %pecuniary interests;
who, condemning the acquisition Of
territory by force as criminal agrees
sion,' wrests her possessions from a
foreign state by the menace Of contin-
ued war; who finds the plain duty Of
the government to be one thing today
and exactly the opposite thing tomor-
row, and whose disregard of the eIe-
mentary principles Of civil service re-
form is a scandal as notorious as it is
indefensible."
1t would be a very queer sort of DEM
ocrat who would vote for the little fell
low with his reckless. stained, dis
, raceful record. Judge him by that,
Id no man who calls himself a popu-
list, much less a democrat, can vote