Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1902-08-14
A CHANGE OF HEART.
Harry Il. Phelps, Editor
of Marshall County
Announces Him
self and His
Paper
AS REPUBLICAN.
The Following Appears i'm the
AS REPUBLICAN.
The Following Appears in the
Last Issue.
THE SENTINEL is REPUBLICAN"
"With the Death of the Popnlist
Party in Marshall County
We switch.o

for three years and a half we are COM
PEELED to come before our readers and
announce that from this issue the Mar
shall County Sentinel will support the
republican ticket, SO long as it is under
the present management. The change
may, perhaps seem abrupt to some who
have perhaps not followed the political
situation closely Of late. 1t will be
remembered that when the peoples
party met in convention at Huron June
25th, it was known that on account of
the enactment of our last legislature,
fusion could not again be accomplished
except under either the name democrat
or peoples party. Our delegates to that
convention fought ~strenously against
taking the name democrat and suggested
either nominating a straight ticket or
taking a new name. The majority
however voted these ideas down and
decided to not nominate a ticket this
fall. Many of the delegates then went
into the democratic convention and par
ticipated in nominating a straight dem
~ocratic ticket. The state convention
decided that in the state at least the
peoples party were out of business for
two years and that lea for good. On
Saturday, August end, the county con-
vention was held in the court house at
Britton, and the question was again
taken up of the ACCESSIBILITY of nomi-
mating a county peoples party ticket.
It was decided as recorded elsewhere in
this issue of the Sentinel, to not nomi-
nate a ticket. Thus by a narrow margin
of one, the peoples party in the county
has let go to the other two parties in the
county.
The decision of the convention, as
Chairman Creaser said, made the popu-
lists, political orphans, but if it made Of
individuals political orphans, it made us
twins and orphans TOO for we were
individually orphaned and also left with
a newspaper which is an orphan.
Such was the situation presented to
the editor of the Sentinel. Like a
majority of the populists we came into
the peoples party from the republican,
had We wanted TO be a democrat we
could have gone to the democratic party
instead of the populist. Now the peo-
pies party have gone and we are left to
choose which party TO support and we
hope we have decided for that party in
which, we feel that the most is being
done for the common people. The
democratic party, to u mind, offers no
hope for the conscientious populist.
While its platform in the state may be
acceptable we cannot go by state plat
forms bat must wait for the national
platform of two years hence. What
that platform will be no one dares
youchsafe. If Bryan and his following
control the convention it will perhaps
be a platform suited in some degree to
the populists of this state. If the con-
vention is controlled by the Hill, Cleve-
Iaud faction it viii certainly not be
favored by populists. The democratic
party as was said in county convention
Saturday is a mass of warning factions,
We hear of the Cleveland harmony idea
of the Bryan harmony idea, of Petit
grew and a new party, Of Watterson
and the southern democracy disagreeing
with all the other leaders. In other
words the factions of the party are
hope.essly apart end cannot consolidate
into a successful party. After debating
all these phases of democracy we are
willing to confess that we are en-
agnostic as to the next platform it may
produce. AT present time you can go
to bed with the democrats and be any
where from a Tom johnson, Golden
Rule Jones sooialistic, populistic demo
crat or a Cleyelandistic conservative but
will wake up with the next national
platform to find yourself in either a
bedlam of parties or if the improbable
thing, harmony, should come, il will be
the harmony of high sounding issues
compromised and weak enough to suit
the warning factions, with the principal
issues the Offices.
On the other hand the republican
party does offer inducements to the
populist to come back where he belongs.
AS the state platform Of the populists
saws, we endorse the policy of recipro-
city for the relief Of Cuba, as pledged
by President Mckinley and advocated
by President Roosevelt and rs that same
platform states.
We congratulate the peoples party ON
the splendid campaign of education ION
Quoted by them in the party, and we
point to the result of their work in the