The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1901-04-07
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
BEWARE OF CLASS APPEALS.

Rockingham Anglo Saxon.
There were never truer sayings than
these two: Politics make strange bed
fellows" and "a fellow feeling makes us
Wondrous kind. Here are two men hob
nobing together, who only few short
years ago exhausted the language in
search of choice eoithets to hurl at one
another
But now all this is changed, and they
are hail fellows well met.
They remind us of two orphans-Mr
Caldwell has left his party, while Mr.
Butler's party has left him.
Let us all eep.-Wadesboro Messen-
ger-Intelligencer.
1t should not occasion any surprise that
the editor of the Charlotte Observer
finds congenial spirit in ex-senator But
Ter. In fact, it appears to us that the
Observer is following the line of campaign
which Mr.. Butler used with such pro-
nounced temporary success, and which
brought such pronounced humiliation to
the State. and earned for himself the cor
dial contempt of all North Carolinians.
1t appears to us that the Observer is try
ing to do with the business men" of the
State what Mr.. Butler did with the far
mers of the State in the early 90's, and in
doing SO it could not find in all history
hero more to the point and a plan of cam
paign more adroitly laid than Mr.. Butler
and Mr.. Buffers.
The Republican party in this State,
after twenty years of successive defeats,
realized that its only hope of success was
to materially disorganize its otherwise
invineible enemy, and in the early 90's
this opportunity came. The ammunition
to be used was class prejudice, and Mr..
Butler proved himself a past master in
the art. Processing an undying allegiance
to the State Democracy and with an in
terest in the farmers almost equal to
mothers love, he set himself to the task
first Of i.aisoning the minds of his farmer
wards against the national Democracy.
His success 1.-THE success of he and his as
sect test is important and disastrous
State history. He convinced many of
them that the one end and aim and object
of the National Democracy was to de-
press the price of cotton and rob the
farmers Of Central and Eastern North
Carolina, Just as the Charlotte Observer,
following his example, has endeavored to
impress the business men of the State
with the idea that every boiler in the
State would explode and every spindle
stop and every dollar of capital take
wings unto itself and fly away as soon as
Democratic President should take his
seat. All the while, though, it has pro-
fessed to be very "loil' to the State
Democracy.
Mr.. Butler succeeded so well in destroy
ing the generation of a. large part of our
60, oos,. Iso4 aF
life time, by his adroit appeals to class
prejudice, that he found the matter of
putting their delusion into marketable
shape a very ample one. With their eyes
blndfolded he lead them into the Repub-
lican camp and sold them to Jeter Prit-
chard for six years term in the United
States Senate.
The time and money and energy used
in restoring the State from the conse-
quences of that betrayal were, perhaps.
equal to the productive energy of the
State for a year.
The Observer has not succeeded so
well in its attacks upon the National
Democracy as Butler did, but it is inn
patient of SUGGESTS anxious to see what
the end will be-so hurries it's game to
whether it prove abortive or
not.
1t has drilled itself into very fine con-
tempt for our State Democratic leaders
just the kind of material it delights to
poise on its fork and roast before the
Goals of its peculiar genius. All politi-
clans, they, and demagogues mostly; but
when it wants genuine, up-to-date, land
grabbing, unparalleled, subsidy advocat-
ing, Mark Hanna type of statesman, it
has to go over into the Republican ranks,
where it finds Mr.. Pritchard an ever
present example.
1t denounces as agrarian one of the
most honorable committees of the Legis-
lature, the Finance Committee of the
House and Senate, composed Of such men
as London. Long. Page, Aycock and Little,
of our county, and others equally honora-
bic, because they reported a bill which
made proper provision for the growing
needs of the State Government, the in
creased demand for the care of the in
sane. and for a four months free school.
which the Observer advocated in the cam
pa'gn as heartily as any.
The Observer could not bear the idea
of stigmatizing Judges Furches and Doug
las as partisan, when they have woven
such a tangled web of judicial decisions
in their efforts to keep their party
friends in office that Philadelphia law
yer would be puzzled to conform any one
of their forty decisions with the law as