Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1902-10-02

Speaker. and Handled His Poor Subject Well.
The opening gun in the republican
campaign, in the Acme opera house last
evening, was not Of as large calibre as
was expected. The audience was the
smallest that ever greeted prominent
political speaker in that hall, and the
barometer of enthusiasm was exceed
ingly low. Mr.. Humphrey is a fluent
talker, and his ability as lawyer makes
special pleading come easy to him. Some
of his oratorical flights were as fine as
his arguments were coarse-which is
paying him quite compliment.
]. G. Lewis, chairman Of the evening,
introduced Mr.. f. Z. Bonner, who, in
introducing Mr.. Humphreys, made a
short speech in his usual pleasant man.
ner, the tenor of which would have
caused stranger in the country to i'm
agine we were holding an election to de-
eide whether we should have good or
bad times. But, as this is the burden
of the republican campaign song this
year, Mr.. Bonner should not be blamed.
His appeal for the upholding of the
hands Of President Roosevelt by elect.
ing the republican congressman from this
state, caused broad smile to illumine
the countenances OF such of his hearers
who cared to remember that those con.
gresham, two of them at least, were
busy tying the presidents hands down,
in his pet Cuban measure, all during the
recent session. After this break, Mr..
Bonner introduced Hon. W. Z. Humph-
rery as the speaker of the evening.
Mr.. Humphrey devoted about forty
minutes in discussing some of the issues
of the day, and carefully avoiding others.
He covered the subject of trusts in 2
most bewildering manner, and threw out
figures with glibness never excelled by
Farmer Todd. in the balmy days Of
populism. He was bewildering in that
after labored argument to prove that
all this cry about trusts was democratic
that the trusts were good and
bad; that, as free trade England had
trusts, the tariff did not foster them, he
proceeded to show that all antitrust
legislation was enacted by the republican
party. and reasoned that his was the
only party that could be depended upon
to regulate them. This left the audience
that, if the trust evil was
only democratic pretence and hypoc-
risy," why had the republican party
been legislating against them? Of course,
he forgot to say that every trust and
in the country was praying for
the success of the republican party, else
his hearers might have thought the
rather liked republican
Next, he took up the Philippine ques-
ton, and, by first wrongly stating the
democratic position, made his greatest
effort, in the hope that little
life might be infused into the apathetic
but with Indifferent success.
They would not enthuse.
In common with all republican speak
ers, and most papers, he did not fail to
claim that the prosperity of this great
nation rested upon the republican party.
In describing the pane OF '93 and the
succeeding years he became pathetic,
but appeared totally oblivious of the
starving miners in Pennsylvania in these
days OF republican prosperity.
While some strenuous pleading for work
votes was made, MIR. Humphrey
was as dumb as an oyster on the subject
of deepest interest to the laboring men
of the Pacific Coast, i. e. the Chinese
exclusion law, passed at the last session
of congre SIS, with every measure objected
to by organized labor incorporated into
the law.
In rounding up at the close he warned
the workingman that if the fairfield
trusts were forced 10 do business without
the power to tax consumers they might
quit business, and throw their help idle.
In the little talk for himself, he modestly
observed that, while the democratic
nominees for congress were good men,
more political pie might be obtained for
this section by sending him to Wash
ington.
Along the Water front
The schooner Melrose is loading at the
West & Slade mill for San Pedro.
The schooner A. j. West is at the