Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1902-07-24
PASSING OF GORMAN
Gives Up Efforts to Save De-
mocracy by Reorganization.
QUERY As TO WHO ARE DEMOCRATS

QUERY As TO WHO ARE DEMOCRATS
Followers of Bryan Have Stopped
Talking to Republicans and Have
Taken to Arguing With the Demo-
Gratis Who Favor Housecleanine.
1t is not an uncommon occurrence
in Ottumwa nowadays to hear a dis
cusslon between two lifelong demo-
Gratis, men who have stood shoulder
to shoulder and voted for the free sill
yer plank, the anti-imperialistic plank,
the free trade plank and all the other
planks which proved little too weak
to hold president They are not dis
cussing the beauties of the landscape
either, nor yet the clean streets, nor
the high water, but they are discuss
ing the pro and con sides of those
same planks for which they voted in
years gone by. One has had his views
charged but the other is still full of
the old principles. Strange to say,
they have little to say about the plans
for the reorganization of the party,
hut each is for his own ideas.
Democratic party politics for this
year grow more and more like a COM
ic opera. Senator German is making
persistent, but quiet effort to have
himself eliminated as the figure in the
situation responsible for the results
already reached, and those now to be
clearly foreseen. Two or three months
ago the senator was solicitous to be,
recognized as the head of reorgan-
ization movement, which was to sig
nalize itself by carrying the lower
house of congress, that he was having
himself interviewed as to party poll.
tics, and was himself interviewing the
workmen around Laurel Hill with a
view to feeling the popular pulse. The
result of these experiments was his,
advice to the party to drop Imperial
ism" and come out strong on the trust
question
Chairman Griggs of the congression-
al committee fell readily into line on
the suggestion, and began preparing
literature on that line for distribution
during the campaign. But the party
could not be united on this new de-
parture." Democrats of the Carmack
school insisted on having Philippine
literature, and there was even de-
mand from New York that imperial
ism" should not be entirely sidetrack-
ed. Along with this complication the
Kansas City platform democrats have
been raising the issue" of regularity
everywhere, and it is plain that the
democracy is hopelessly divided on
more questions than one. Senator Cor
man has accordingly disappeared from
the view. He has not only ceased in
terviewing himself, but he has ceased
allowing himself to be interviewed.
1t is clear that he and the rest of the
reorganizers have abandoned all hope
of justifying themselves and their pol
.ioies to the party through victory at
the polls this year. The strongest
evidence of this is seen in the efforts
they are now making to impress the
party, and the country, with the idea
that Chairman Griggs has taken the
bit in his teeth and is running away
with the entire plan of the campaign.
Chairman Griggs, according to these
advices, has developed a sudden stiff
neckedness and stubborhness, and is
insisting that the Bryan democrats
who are said to constitute the major
ity of his committee, shall have their
way. This correspondence has indi-
Gated, from the beginning Of the deyel-
opment of the German plot, that the
Bryan men are in a small minority in
the congressional committee using the
word in its proper sense of indicating
those democrats who insist that the
Kansas City platform shall remain the
party doctrine until it is superseded in
the regular way, and that none but
the men who have al
ways supported the party
ticket and platform shall become the
party nominees. Probably there is not
member of the committee who is
without straight party record, but
the majority in that body is not in far.
mony with Bryan and Organism, and
even Chairman Griggs himself is open
to suspicion in that respect, as is
nearly every other prominent Georgia
democrat.
Now, however, the reorganizerss in.
sist that the management of the CAM
paign is being turned over to the "one-
gallus" element. This is the express
sion of the German plan to escape re-
sponsibility for the defeat that is clear
ly in sight. The reorganizers have
been largely successful in capturing
the party machinery in many states,
and are confident of their ability to
send anti-Bryan delegations into the
next national convention from many
states which they could not move two
years ago. But they dread the effect
upon the party mind of the crushing
defeat they now feel to be imminent,
and are seeking to fasten the respon-
sibility for it upon Chairman Griggs.
who, they say, is giving the Bryan ele-
ment in the committee too much rope.
1t is hardly conceivable that this ruse
can succeed. The reorganizers came
too far out in the open in the begin
ming of the game, and were too uncon-
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