The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-12-03
Iuarrcr ro 1rn. c1EvEIANp.

08&& &NS " 2@&&t 8&&A~ ~%~~~~~r~~
 The chattanooga News. certainly not a Cleveland partisan. does him the justice to say: ITO our mfnd 1t Is doubtful If Mfr. Cleveland ever seriously considered becoming candidate for third nomina- tion.." The News is correct, in our opin- ion. Mr. Cleveland does not desire an- ether term, but 1t should be plain that it would have been almost indecent In him to come out in letter of declinafion when the agitation of his name first be- gan. His enemies and critics would at once have bounced on him for declining an honor almost before 1t had been hinted at. It was only when he found the best Democrats in the country turning to him that he felt called on to make a public announcement.
 To say that all this sentiment and talk in his favor was not grateful to him would be doing him an injustice. MT. Cleveland Is one of the really great men of the country. . man of remarkable self poise and dignity, but he is human, for all that. It must be pleasant to him as man and as a Democrat to see and feel that such a change has been wrought in the Democratic sentiment of the coun- try--a change which shows beyond doubt that the kind of Democracy of which he is one of ths greatest living exponents is again assuming control of the party. Ho feels and sees that while much of the talk was for him as a man and . states man. much more of It was an evidence of willingness on the part of Democrats to get back to his political belief. 1he question is being asked if he would accept @ nomination if 1t were tendcred him as the unanimous voice of the party. That is a question that hardly need to be discussed. Esen his enemies admit that he has never yet hesitated to do what he considered a duty. The pendulum is swinging back to his views and it is with in the bounds of possibility that the next six or seven months may so unify and concentrate Democratic sentiment in that direction that he will be nominated with out dissent In that case he would accept and be elected.
 This is not a probable contingency, as we read the future. Democrats win ac- cept his decision as final and will respect his wishes not to have his name consid- cred. At the same time we are just as sure as we can be of anything in the fu- ture that the party will unite on a Dem ocrat of his class. It may be Parker or Shepard or olney or Whitney. or some man not yet mentioned, but he will be man whose Democracy Is without flaw. There will be no more experiments and no more political pyrotechnics. The con vention will choose a man and build q platform with view to securing the sup port of all ths thinlinss conservative people of the country, and for that re- suit we may largely give credit to Mir. Cleveland.
 Coming back for a moment to his let- ter. we are not at all surprised to find The Louisville Courier-Journal criticising it. as it has 50 long criticised everything else he does. Alluding to that letter The C.-J. says: Had Mir. Cleveland written it. in the first place, 1t would at one and the same time have been more meritori. ous and have silenced all criticism" That is an exceedingly unfair statement. Had MT. Cleveland written such a letter when talk of his name first began there is not @ newspaper in the United States that could have gotten ahead of The Courier Journal in bouncing on what it would have denominated his indecent haste in declining what had not been rendered him. Nobody asked you, sir." would have glared at us in startling headlines. and all the vigirous English in the use of which that paper is a past master would have been brought into use for the pur- pose of ridiculing the ex-President Why should that paper keep Up it's war on hIm?