Virginian-pilot. (Norfolk, Va.) 1898-1911, 1900-08-19
A CAMPAIGN OF DIRT AND
TwADDLE.

The Republicans seem bent on max
ing 1t campaign of nastlness. They
have begun that way. Their candidate
Tor Vice. President led off with speech
that would have come with much bet
ter grace from u Southern radical who
hoped TO get n third-class postofIice as
reward for his eloquence, and from
whose point OF view eloquence and
libel on the enemy were identical. The
vicious spitefulness and gross misrep-
resentationaSof Roosevelt's speech gave
wrong twist to the campaign that 1t
will not get over, even should Roose-
welt have no imitators. That he will
have imitators goes without saying,
and of course the limitations Will be
even more vile than the genuine article,
which is saying much.
Here, as a case in point, is choice
bit from the Baltimore American,
Republican newspaper usually classed
as respectable and fairly able:
1.-The recent assassination and at
tempt at assassination in Europe can
not fall to accentuate the seriousness
of the issue which Mr.. Bryan and his
Populist allies have thrust upon the
w
Anarchists. and probably imagine that
they are doing u public service by their
attack on the courts, were they to sue
coed and carry out their principles
they would do infinitely more harm
than all the Anarchists in q century,"
OF course this sort of twaddle harms
nobody save those who indulge in 1T.
The attempt to make political capital
in tins country out of the assassination
of King Humbert is sufficiently far
fetched and nonsensical to excite the
dcrision and contempt of intelligent
men, quite regardless of party. It's le-
climate effect will be to impress upon
the mind o. Inc citizen that the party
that is SO desperately put to it to make
out case for itself, and against it's
opponent. must inevitably be In the
wrong. The Democrats have every
thing to gain and nothing to lose by
attacks like that of Roosevelt. and by
manifestations of rabid imbecility like
that quoted above.
1t is, nevertheless, worth while that
protest should be made against forcing
q campaign of this sort on the coun-
try. The campaign of 1896 was bad
enough; 1t left bitternesses that four
years have not served materially to
assuage, not only between man and
man, but between class and class, and
section and section. What are we to
expect OF this campaign if three
months before the election, at the very
opening OF the campaign indeed, we
az, to have the sort of stuff dished out
TO the country by Roosevelt and the
American? If the campaign is to be-
gin with venom and scurrility 1t may
very we'll end with violence. But
whether or not that is the outcome,
such a campaign is q sorry spectacle
in itself and tends directly to lower
the moral tone of the whole country.
Democrats should take pains to make
it clear in the beginning that they do
not desire a campaign of personalities
and OF dirt. Then. if the Republicans
shall persist in forcing such cam
raign, decent men will have no diff
Guilty in placing the responsibility.
MIR. Roosevelt says that all men who
are not OF his POLITICAL faith are dis
honest. dishonorable and cowardly.
The Baltimore American intimates
that they are likewise anarchist SYM
plthizers and secret abettors of as
sassination. DO the Republicans really
desire to start the ball at this pace.
to open the campaign on this level?