The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-06-12
THE THIRD TERM IDEA.

l thC uidtiy SOOu WOIuS SiNCh iIo iooOASs 
 THE THIRD TERM IDEA.
 The New Bedford (Mass.) Mefeury says:
 The proposition to elect President Nc.
 Kinley for third term Is in accordance
 with the spirit of the times. The argu'
 ments employed when a third term was
 suggested for Grant are no longer re- | garded.
 | We hardly know what The Mercury
 means by the spirit of the times with
 which a presidential third term Is ir
 accordance, for we are slow to believe | that the people of this country will
 break the universal rule which has SC
 far governed the office and establish a precedent which will be both danger ous and limitless. No argument against | fourth term can be adduced which is | not of equal force and pertinency when l urged against a third. If the Ameri- can people break loose from the pld | traditions and practices, there can be no stopping place. By successive elec- life just as well and as unobjectionably as he could hold it twelve years. | There was no need to drag Grant into the discussion. Most intelligent people will agree that Mckinley for three terms is better than Grant for two ,or even one. and what was or was not proper in Grants case can have no bearing on the present case. Mckinley | is making the country fairly good and creditable Chief Executive, and we have little reason to hope or expect that a | better President will succeed him, if he comes from the Republican Party. That a change from Mckinley to some other Republican might be much worse for the country is easy to believe, but that has nothing to do with the princi- pie involved. When Washington's sec- ond term was about to expire, there were doubtless many good and wise statesmen who feared that the country would find no successor who in every way, would fill the office as the first President had done, but they were will entering on what might be an unlimited era of one man rule in the Presidential chair.
 What the American people would not consider with patience in the case of Washington, they will hardly consider at all in the present instance. Nor Is it to be supposed that those prominent Republican statesmen who are looking So longingly in the direction of the White House will submit to third nomination for the present occupant. They will not only bring custom and precedent into the game and use them for all they are worth, but they will be melted and spurred by their own ann bitions and desires to smother any third-term sentiment. And, in connec- ton with this subject. the following from another New Bedford paper, The Standard, is to the point:
 If the Democrats were to nominate Mir, Bryan hke-enough the people of this country would consent to d third term President in the person of William Alc- Kinley; but taking chances of such con tingency would be about as risky politics as could well be indulged in. If the Democrats were to nominate d man of the stamp of Chief Justice Fuller or Rich ard Olney there would be for them a good deal more than what IS called fighting chance, and the recklessness simply stupid. Whether MT. Mckinley was or was not a good man for the Pres idency and whether the third term mo- ton was or was not safe would De or small practical account in comparison with the hue and cry that would be raised over the presentation of one man TOT three successive terms. Ordinarily com, nonsense political tactics will demand the selection of a new candidate in lSe4 and now is as good a time as any to make an end of all third term talk.
 The Standard very properly takes the position that Democracy is to be considered, and that much may depend upon the man who may be selected by our Party. That the nomination of MT. Bryan would probably lead to the re- nomination and election of MT. McKin- ley. is altogether probable, but we look on that as a contingency not to be ap- prehended. The Democrats will nomi- nate good man, on a sound platform, and if the Republicans have any desire to succeed, they will put up a man who will not violate one of the most sacred unwritten laws of our Government. They are likely to have enough defen- sive work to do without having to de- fend themselves against the charge of political sacrilege. To tell the truth, we have little hope that our friends, the enemy, will make such a blunder, nor have we any real fear that our Party will give them such an excurse as that by The Standard.
 DON'T MISTAKE.
 The North Made One Blunder-Let