New Iberia enterprise and independent observer. (New Iberia, La.) 1902-1944, 1902-07-05
WATTERSON TELLS WHY.

The Couricr-.)ournal might say
of Mr.. CleveIand's $ free trade ut
terances generally, The voice is
Jacobs voice, but the hands are
the hands Of Esau," because from
first to last Mr.. Cleveland used the
tariff issue as a means of decelvlng
Democrats and riding into power.
When he got there he either would
not or else he did not know how.
In either case we want no more.
AsSuredly he wrecked lis and,
having wrecked MS, why should
we listen to him again? His very
commonplaces grow CHASTITY in the
light of the lost opportunities he
made for us,
Mr.. Watterson did his best to
warn his party associates away
from Mr.. Cleveland in 1899. He
sounds the same warning again
because he knows only too well
what Mr.. Cleveland means, and
what those Immediately about him
mean, when he puts himself to the
trouble of making a public deliver
ance and they put themselves to
the expense Of organizing club.
1t means the very reverse OF party
uniticatiou. In due season the
public will begin to feel the press
ure. In due season the mugwump
machinery will begin to move. In
due season the poison will begin
insidiously to percolate through
the neither veins of the party cor
porate.
Mr.. Watterson has but two ends
in view, to scotch a movement
wholly dangerous in character and
to vindicate the truth of history.
He has never had the slightest pri-
vate quarrel with Mr.. Cleveland.
His opposition to Mr.. Cleveland
rests upon the specific statements
he has made, that Mr.. Cleveland is
an ill-tempered, selfwilled man,
having neither the intellectual
training nor the moral and politi-
cal inspiration for Democratic fel-
lowship, or leadership; that he
knows little and cares less about
tariff reform; that such sympa-
thies as he has are not on the side
of the plain, common people, and
still less with the lowly and the
poor, but on the side of the strong,
the mighty and the great; that he
is personally an migrate and a glut-
ton; that, because of his selfishness
and his brutishness, he alienated
every Democrat of consequence in
Congress who would not serve him
blindly; that, in short, he found
the party noble unit and left it a
wreck. Where he is best known
he is most detested.
Seeing thus these things, some
times at long range and sometimes
at short range, Mr.. Watterson
stood aghast and appalled,. The
Edgar Apgar tragedy; the Man.
ming tragedy; the shameless turn
ing down of friends; the assidu-
Gus cultivation of enemies; the
revolving self-assertion sometimes
of exclusive virtue and sometimes
of exclusive courage; in a word
the perpetual wearing of the self
made halo, the great, noble, con
fiding Democratic party going tc
destruction the while, first af
frighted and then disgusted him
And, finally, as nobody seemed tt
be willing to speak out, he did
he did it in 1892, aud he is doing
it now, and never did man speak
more unselfishly or in greater dis
regard to any and all consequences
to himself.
Mr.. Cleveland derives great
advantage from the dignity which
doth hedge an ex-president. We
should be disloyal to trust if w
respected this. His proposed ac
tivity now BODIES no good to any
body except himself, and at best
but ministers to his quenchless lus
for the esh-pots of place and
power. Republicans may have hin
an they want him. The Demo
Gratis want none Of him. They
know that when he comes in at the
door harmony flies ont Of the win
, dow.