The progressive farmer. [volume] (Winston, N.C.) 1886-1904, 1904-07-05

litical contest. Williams may himseANbe that
man, for he is not yet fifty years old. Intact, one
of the leading American magazines-ENHybody's
suggests that he ought to be nominated this
year. "There may be a few moss-coveredhunkers
in the North who would get excited if a Sauthern
man were nominated for President" it SAYS, "but
there can't be many of them, and they wouldA vote
the Republican ticket under any circumstances
What Northern Democrat or Independent wkuld
be frightened by that old scare-crow~
Will Bryan Bolt7
And now a leading question is, Will Bryan bblt
If a Cleveland man is named? As yet he has NOT
given a definite answer. "While a Democrat pre-
sumes that his convention will write a PLATFORM
and nominate a ticket that he can conscientious1y
support" he says, sit is not a conclusive prize
sumption, and I do not believe that any one ought
to be asked, Or expected to say that, no matter
what a convention does, he will support the ticket.
For that reason I defer until the convention has
acted a decision upon the course that I will pur-
sue"
And this suggestion brings to mind the differ
ence in the standards of conduct set up for US
smaller fellows and those set up for the great
chieftans of politics. Among us common folk the
man who scratches a ticket is regarded as one
of the uncircumcised and the Philistines, and yet
our high priests in both parties teach differently
both by precept in the synagogues and by example
IN their own lives. Here is Mr.. Cleveland, for
example, three times his party's leader, who will
scratch the ticket if the candidate is a Brayan
man, and here is Mr.. Bryan, twice his party's
leader, who will scratch the ticket if the candidate
is a Cleveland man; Mr.. Bryan saying in so many
words that "a man should make his party ahilia-
lions suit his convictions, not his convictions suit
his party creed" and Mr.. Cleveland saying as
much by his actions. Mr.. Roosevelt also has
taught the same doctrine to Republicans as the
following paragraph bears witness:
"In political life, whether a man acts without
or within party lines is not of'very great moment,
if only he always acts honestly, fearlessly and eff
fectively; but remember that 1t is necessary to
be both efficient and upright, too. Parties are
necessary. Without association and organiza-
ton, and the necessary partial subordination of
individual preferences, no great work can be
done; but on the other hand, no man has a right
to cOndone crime, to excuse moral shortcomings
of any kind, because of alleged party necessity"
X
The Hawthorne Centenary.
In connection with her celebration of indie
pendence Day, New England also celebrated yes
terday, the one hundredth anniversary of the
birth of Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of the great
est American novel. We cannot do better in the
brief space at our command than to quote from
the New York Outlook, of July End, which says
"a descendant of the Puritans, born in the vii
lage associated with the most terrible tragedy in
the history of Puritanism, Hawthorne became the
most subtle and artistic Interpreter of certain
aspects of the Puritan spirit. Educated at a
country college in a time when all the colleges in
America were practically country colleges, with
access to few books, and opportunities of contact
with fewer men of his own tastes, condemned
by circumstances and his own temperament to a
life of almost complete solitude for twelve years.
it was not surprising that he was driven in upon
himself, and that the human soul became the OBJ
ject of his supreme interest, the subject of his
most subtle psychological study; and it was the
soul out of harmony with itself, out of relation
to the moral law, which interested him most pro-
foundry; His touch on morbid conditions is that