The Springfield herald., 1904-10-21

can or DE m ocr q tic Ad IN inistration
Shall Conduct the Afairs of Govern
ment = Opposition Is Neither Safe
Nor Sane.
Although the Republican party well
comes comparison OF the character
and personality of its candidates with
those of the candidates of the st. Louis
convention, it prefers to urge the cleo
ton of Roosevelt and Fairbanks as fit
ting representatives and instruments of
the party's policies and intentions.
II it were true. which it is not. that
there is anything in the career of Judge
Alton b. Parker to justify the conten-
tion that he would make "snner and
70 safer President than Theodore Roose-
yelt the fact would remain, that. tied
up with the Democratic party, Moses
with the modern equipment of Glad
stone, could not insure as safe and sane
a government as the Republican party
has administered under President Roose-
welt.
1t is not pretended that Judge Parker
possesses any superiority OF statecraft,
character or experience to Grover Cleve-
land. In fact, lie has been accepted by
the conservative clements of Democracy
ponderous oracle of Buzzard's Bay, and
he has only been accepted by the radical
or Bryan element of the party, because
he had demonstrated the lack Of Cleve-
lands safety and sanity by voting for
free silver in 1896 and 1900.
In these two votes the proof is COM
plete that there is nothing in Judge
Parkers convictions, character or con
science to promise anything better, should
he be elected, than weak, vacillating
and reactionary Democratic administra-
ton.
Worse than this. whatever may be
thought of Judge Parker's personal char
acter and ability. he stands before the
world as the presidential creation of
David B. Hill, and his chief associates
been Hill, "Bill' Sheehan. Pat" Nc
Carren, "Charlie" Murphy and others
of the Manhattan brand Of Tammany
statesmen for revenue only.
"Mr. facing both Ways"
Nothing in his campaign utterances
has suggested that Judge Parker pos
sesses any of the stern attributes of
leadership that bind parties to the will
of a strong, conservative. conscientious
chief. On the contrary he has earned
the sobriquet, bestowed upon him by
Speaker Cannon, of "Mr.-Facing- Both
Ways"
Therefore vote for the "safe and
sane" Parker and his octogenarian mate
is only to be justified by trust in the
safety and sanity of the party whose
nominees they are.
For forty years-barring the two
Cleveland intervals-the Democracy has
been excluded from power, because the
~. h,y tu
safety, its sincerity and its sanity. Dur
ing all that period it has embraced with
in its ranks nearly all the elements of
discomfort, discord and reaction that are
the signs and proofs of hopeless politi-
cal stagnancy and decay.
As party it threw every impediment
within its reach in the way of the ener-
getic prosecution of the war for the
preservation of the Union.
That the reader may understand that
tho Democratic leopard has not changed
its spots in forty years it may be re-
called that on July =, 1864, the Demo-
cratic members of Congress put forth
an address to the people of the United
States in which. according to George
William Curtis in Harper's Monthly.
President Lincoln was charged with the
engrossment of power; with military in
reference in elections: with the crea-
ton OF bogus States; with illegally rais-
ing troops; with unnecessary and hateful
conscription; with the payment of rx-
>orbitant bounties: with employing colored
troops on an equality with white soldiers;
with setting up false and ruinous finan-
cial system: with placing us in peril of
foreign interference; with endeavoring to
corrupt the race by amalgamation with
negroes"
In August of that same year August
Belmont, whose son is now pulling wires
behind the "Sphin1 of Esopus." as tenn
porary chairman of the Democratic Ma
tional Convention, said that -four years
of misrule by sectional. fanatical and
corrupt party had brought our country
to the verge of ruin. The past and pres
cnt are sufficient warnings of the dis
astrous consequences which would befall
us il Mr.. Lincoln's reelection should be
made possible by our want OF patriotism
and unity"
seymour's Sentiments.
Horatio Seymour, in his speech as
permanent chairman of the same con-
vention. inveighed bitterly against Lin
coins administration and the Republican
party, saying: "They were animated by
intolerance and fanaticism. and blinded
by an ignorance of the spirit of our in
SttutlonS, the character OF our people
and the condition of our land" "Step by
step" hs continued, "they have marched
on to results from which at the outset
they would have shrunk with horror:
and even now when war has desolated
our land, has laid its heavy burdens upon
labor, and when bankruptcy and ruin
overhang us, they will not have the union
restored except upon conditions unknown
to the Constitution" He concluded by
demanding the restoration of the Union
through the unconditional surrender of
the principle of national self-pressrva-
ton and "the full recognition of the
rights of the States demanded by the
people of the South.
These speeches of Belmont and Sey-
mour-the prototypes of the Belmonts
and Hills. Bryans and Ben Tillmans,
Bsurke Cockrans and Carl Schur1es OF
our day-were but the prelude to the res
olutions OF the convention in which LIN
coins administration was denounced
from every traditional point Of view with
in the voca abulary of PARTISAN vitupera-
ton. and the war was denounced as fail
ure in the following perennial Democratic