Cameron County press. [volume] (Emporium, Cameron County, Pa.) 1866-1922, 1904-12-01
TIE COMING OPPOSITION.
Probable Coalition and Greed of the
Democracy for the Next
Campaign.

What sort of a reorganization ard
realignment will take place in the
democratic party in the next four
years? What kind of a coalition and
creed will the republican party have
to fight in 1908? These are queries OF
some interest to democrats, populists.
socialists, republicans and all other
political elements 1t is generally as
sumed that the radicals of the democ-
racy will be in the ascendant in that
party by the time the campaign Of
1903 opens, and that these are to be
the force which the republican party
will be called upon to combat Mr.
Debs, on the other hand, says that the
democratic party will disintegrate, as
a result of its crushing defeat last week,
and that the socialist party will take
its place AS Debs was the presidential
candidate of the social democratic party
in the two latest national elections
and as he pOlled a considerable vote,
his words on this point will have some
weight Debs had $4,000 votes in 1900
He got at least 100000 in 1904, and the
total, when all the returns are in, may
60 above that figure.
But the rest of the radicals are not
in agreement with Mr.. Debs. Thomas
E. Watson, who probably received in
the neighborhood of 100000 votes as
the standard bearer of the populist
party in the canvass just closed, says,
too, that the democratic party must
now go to pieces, and that a reorganiZa-
tiOn will take place on lines similar to
those on which the populists made
their recent fight He derides the idea
that his old friend Bryan will be able
to galvanize any new life into the dem
ocratic party. The pOpulist creed in
cludes these tenets, among others: The
national ownership of the railways, the
telegraphs and the telephones; an in
come tax; postal savings banks; the
initiative and referendum; govern
mental control of all money issues, de-
priying the national banks of the priyi-
lege of emitting currency; local option
on the liquor question throughout the
country; the election Of the president,
United States senators and federal
judges by direct vote Of the people; re-
duction in the army and navy, and, of
course, the free coinage of silver at the
16 to l ratio. This is the programme
which the populists want to set up for
the coalition which it to fight the re-
publican party in 1908, although neither
the populists nor the socialists care
much about free silver, preferriug
sreenbaCks to coin of any sort.
Messrs. Bryan, Hearst and the other
radicals who are in good standing in
the democratic party are the men who
will shape the creed of the republicans
opponent four years hence and put up
the candidates. Most of the things that
the populists put forward could be ac-
cepted by the Bryanite section of the
democratic party. Bryan himself has
come out in favor of ownership of the
railways by the individual states, which
would be a more drastic and demoraliz-
ing move than the ownership of the
national government, for 40 masters
for the railways would introduce a
chaos in the management of these big
and important interests which would
dislocate all industry and threaten the
foundations of society. Nevertheless,
the democratic party is the organization
which will make the fight against the
republicans four years hence Debs' and
Watson's assertions that the democracy
is dead for good this time will not be
accepted by many persons who have
followed the history of that organiza-
tion. The democracy has met many
staggering defeats, though the last was
a little more sweeping and humiliating
than any of its previous disasters. Still,
that party will keep up its organization.
1t will alter its creed and it's leader
snip in the next year or two, but the
name will stick, and many of those who
voted for Parker recently will support
the man who is to be put up in the next
national convention. 1t will be the
democratic party that the republicans
will meet in 1908, but it will be a Bryan
lied and Hearstized party, in which the
fighting ingredient will be at the front,
and which will be able to make a more
picturesque and stirring campaign than
that which Parker and his followers
nut m