Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1902-04-14
Henry Watterson Sounds
Keynote For Demo-
cratic Party.
ONE-MAN POWER ISSUE
One Constitution and
One Flag Against Mil
itary DeSpotiSnn.

Louisville, April 14.-Henry Waiter
son in an editorial yesterday sounds
the keynote for the democratic party
for 1904 in these words:
Opposition TO absolutism and ar
bitrary power will constitute the
fighting Iine-one God. one constitu-
tion and one flag against military
despotiSm and the man on horseback.
The republican organs may laugh
and they may swear" he continued,
but they will have TO face the music,
they will have TO defend or repudiate
the war lordliness of the president
with respect to Schley and Miles;
they will have to defend or repudiate
the Root army bill. proposing a staff
such as made the Dreyfus tragedy in
France possible: they will have to
defend or rePudiate the scheme of
military desPotism and martial law
sought to he esta blished and made
perpetual in the far occident; they
will have To defend or repudiate the
suppression and silence by which the
republican leaders hope to fasten
things upon Us unawares. and along
with them the manifold corruptions
which are their inevitable concomit-
ants. Nicely and Rathbone being but
the avaunt couriers- of that swarm
of carpet-baggers and scalawags
which ever and inevitably swirls
about the Offal piled up along the
route of absOlutism and arbitrary
power.
An Age of AIateriaIIsm.
We live in an age predominated by
material things. The idiosyncrasy of
century gone by was liberty. In
strueted by the American revolution.
Mortified by the French revolution.
but still making progress of kind.
the world was reaching out after
constitutional freedom Measurably
IL attained its purpose. The idiosyn-
Grassy of the century that is upon MS
is commerce-trade and barter in
business. in politics. at the marriage
festival and up to the very affairs
of the Supreme Being. made of iron
and steel and copper. and such like,
and sought to be thrust by the Mad
MuIlahs of Pennsylvania-the Bucca-
neers of the stock market-between
the people and the living God.
Under the ready plea of markets,
absolutism is to find the arguments
for arbitrary power. The army is
first to be debauched and then to be
degraded. The flag is TO become
drop-curtain to conceal every kind
of infamy behind the scenes.
CommercIaIIsm to Justify Everything.
"CommerciaIism is TO justify every
thing until the irons are forged and
the man on horseback is ready TO
plunge the rowells of arbitrary power
deep into the fianks of the republic.
-If ever there was a time, there
fore, when the people of the United
States should question their public
men and look to the methods prevail
ing in their public service-both civil
and military-that time IS now. EX-
cepting the gaps made by the two
Cleveland administrations between
1Ss5-S9 and 1S93-97 the republicans
have been in power since 1861, thirty
three years. They have thus had the
opportunity to breed verX astute
body of political leaders and party
managers. 1t is the nature of long
tenure to draw to itself not merely
the more ambitious among the rising
men of the country. but all the smart
rascaIs as well: and sometimes the
line between ambition and corruption
becomes exceedingly indistinct.
Policy of the Party.
The organization of the rePubli-
can party is well nigh perfect. Its
policy is penetrating and astute. If
II he not laid in the nobler philoso-
phies of government. it yet drives
AWAY down into the baser depths of
human nature; temptations here.
subornation there, suppression and
evasion playing hide-and-seek with
the urost sacred traditions and inn
portant interests; ever casting anch-
ors TO windward, where it dare not
face the music of the gale.
THE Miles episode. from start 10
finish. is case in point. The lieu
tenant general was the one man in
authority who could be relied upon
TO become a party to no collusion or
conspiracy Yet he was not to be
got rid Of He stood right across the
path of the program of absolutism
arranged by the leaders of the fed
eralist party-true to the instance OF
force and the hand of arbitrary pow
err which in the beginning dominated
it-and he was neither to be coaXed
nor bought nor bullied. So he must
he crushed. All that has followed,