Arizona republican., 1900-07-18
When Senator Tillman, who read the

W HcI ocHdlOI NHO ISdu lIC democratic platform to the delegates at
 Kansas City, reached
 SLIGHTLY the paramount" issue
 MIXED. Imperialism" he read
 it twice so that all might understand that he desired to be taken at his word. In view of Bryan's stand for sixteen to wun as the para mount" plank it was evident to every thinking person that the platform builders were hard up for an issue. The suggestions to the convention by Henry expansion and imperialism serve to ern- phasize the ridiculous attitude of the democrats. It is plain that a diagram and specifications will be necessary to bolster up this paramount" business. Listen to Watterson:
 First of all, necessary and essential distinction should be drawn between the terms imperialism" and "expan- sion." They are not synonymous. As Judge Culberson jocosely, but wisely, observed, we done expanded Ha- waii is an actual territory. Porto Rico \ is as absolutely in our possession and under our domination as Alaska. In a formal treaty of peace, ratified by the senate and confirmed by both houses of congress in the enabling act, we have paid Spain twenty millions for the Phil ippine archipelago, five millions more than we paid France for Louisiana. Cuba lies at our very door. With the completion of the Nicaragua canal, and the gradual but sure transfer of the worlds activities from the Atlantic to the Pacific. this will be changed from a back door to the front door of our com- mercial fabric. The gulf of Mexico will become the Mediterranean sea of the western hemisphere. Upon its borders the .ranscontinental lines will find their terminals. We are bound to hold its approaches. Of these. Cuba is as the keepers lodga at the entrance of a great estate. We shall never surrender it. As we'll might the master of a feu- dal castle abandon it's established gate way, with its portcullis. it's bastions and it's bridges. seeking egress and in- gress by ladder or tree top. No matter what the Kansas City platform may or may not say. if MT. Bryan gets into the White House, not a foot of land will slip from the hand of the American occupant, not an inch of the flag staff that carries the ensign of the republic will come off. and not a soldier will be called home from either side of the world until the complete supremacy of the Union Is acknowledged.
 MT. Bryan is yet a young man. Though much of mover. he is some thing of a dreamer, and he may think that he will do many things he will find himself unable to do. The boys will want all the places they can get and more besides, and, well. there is in pol itics, as in medicane, a difference before taking and after taking.
 But "expansion." which is. and i'm perialism,'' which merely pretends, makes a gray horse of quite another color. In war, and politics is kind of war, good generals seek to find the en- emy's weakest side and to make that the point of attack. On our side of "expansion' the republicans are not weak. but strong; because expansion" Is an existent fact from which there is no escape. But, on the s-de of i'm perialism" they are weak because there we can join with them the issue of the administration of these outlying terri tories. In this regard they are answer able for their acts as far as they have gone.
 There is the weak spot of the repub 1icans, gentlemen. Give them the Op portunity to identify you with the doc trinaires and cranks of the Boston school: with the copperheads of the civil war period. and to sIddle you with oh xx-Ii .rh inc visionaries, or fools outright, may let fly during the campaign, and they are all right: they want nothing better: they can set the jingo mill a-going and rely upon the spirit of offended nation- ality to do the rest. But, meeting them upon the attitudes or the facts. taking the same high ground of civilization and patriotism and religion and pro- gress that they claim as an exclusive