Twice-a-week plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1895-1913, 1901-01-04
AS TO M'KINLEY's SUCCESS.
Reelection Does Not Signify Full
and Free Enforcement by
the People.

Reelection to the presidency Is natur
ally accepted by the fortunate candi
date at its face value as personal
compliment and a proof of approba-
ton. The larger the vote the more
fattering is the commentator sup
posed to be. Yet the approval may be
qualified; the election may contain
also lesson and warning. Ii is the
weakness of human nature that, where
as reelected president should return
to power with a heightened sense of
his possibilities, deeper apprecia-
ton of the obligations imposed upon
him by this added evidence of popular
trust, he may in reality accept it conn
wholly. admirable in the past and will
be well-nigh infallible in the future.
Ordinarily it is only the defeated can
didate who with humility and self
searching seeks to find wherein he is
prone to error.
William Mckinley will enter upon
his second term as the result of vote
which leaves no possible doubt as to
the popular preference for him as
against his leading opponent. Yet in
his reduced pluralities in certain states
where his attitude on the money issue
should have swelled his vote he will
find reason for serious thought. Massa
chusetts, for instance, is not state
where Mr.. Bryan's populist tenden
cies are welcome by any means, but
Massachusetts,, owing to the so-called
anti-imperialist sentiment of its vot-
ers, cut down McKinleys plurality OF
1896 by 100000 votes. In New York, q
state of immense commercial and in
dustrial interests, his plurality was
fairly cut in two, though the popular
uprising against Croker and Croker
ism largely offset the effort of Croker
to assist Bryan.
There is in all this a lesson which
Mr.. Mckinley will do well to heed. He
is not in himself a strong man; he is
the medium through which strong
forces operate. His nature is plastic
his habit is to yield, and his will power
is negligible quantity. AS one result
of his pliancy and opportunism we have
now to deal with problem resulting
from the lack of settled and enlight-
ened policy in the Philippines. AS an
other result we are face to face with
the serious problem involved in the
steady growth of certain tendencies
looking to the centralization of wealth
by improper means and for improper
purposes. Up to the present time this
administration has shown no well-de.
fined perception of its duty in the mat
ser of the trust problem, and still les.
has 1t shown any purpose to take any
effective action thereon. The trusts
which hold no special privileges and
switch are not oppressive and the trusts
which owe their very existence to IA
voritism and bad legislation have all
been grouped in the same class and
treated with uniformly tender regard
by the obliging administration. Those
measures of publicity, of tariff reform
and of reform in discrimination in rail
way rates which should divide the two
classes, leaving unframed the benef-
cial combinations which rest on SUI
perior products and low prices to con-
sumers and curbing those which are
part of the administration pro-
gramme.
Mr.. Mckinley has yet to make him.
self known as an earnest friend OF
measures beneficial to the great mass
of the people as distinguished from the
interests of the few who have power
and influence.-Chicago Record Gnd }.