Daily Kennebec journal., 1904-09-09
Bourke Cochran in Augusta.

pearance of the speaker We're tributes
orator; while the very faint and scat
tering applause which rewarded MN
at the close of his two-hours speech
was the inevitable result of the line
of argument he followed. Mr.. Cock
rams periods are of the kind that make
the rafters ring and his polished die
ton is faultless, but his logic is not
equal to his rhetoric and when out
from under the spell of his eloquence
his hearers wonder what he talked
about. Certainly he talked about noth-
ing, last night, which will make Demo-
cratic votes in Maine. He gave no
argument which Senator BeveridSe had
not forestalled and refuted a week
earlier, and although he referred to
Senator Beveridge's speech'in opening
and had a copy of it upon the table
beside him, he carefully avoided taking
up it's points or attempting to answer
them.
Mr.. Cochran devoted a good share
of his speech to the deplorable condi-
tions i'm Colorado which have followed
the trouble between the mine owners
and the union miners there, but he
failed to show where there is the
slightest relation between these
troubles and the issues involved in
the present national campaign. 1t wae
IL good subject for eloquence, but no
listener could see what the Colorado
strike has to do with the coming Pres
idcntial election Would Mr.. Cochran
have had President Roosevelt order the
regular army to Colorado to put down
the laWleSSnesS in the mining camps,
without being requested to do so by
the Governor or the Legislature? Does
he mean for us to infer that a Demo-
cratic President would have done 50?
Mr. Cochran had much to say about
"constitutionalism," but he knows very
we'll that such a course on the part OF
| the President would be unwarranted
and unlawful. Perhaps he wanted the
| crowd to believe that there would have
| been no trouble in the Colorado mines
| if the Democratic party had been in
| power, but he was wise enough not to
attempt to prove this. Mr.. Cochran
|
have not been interfered with in Colo
| r;ido and that the troubles could not
the authorities at Washington. He
also knows that the President is not
empowered to protect IL state against
domestic violence except on the appli-
cation of the executive or the Legis-
laturc. What then was he driving at?
1t was simply the characteristic at
tempt of the Democratic orator to in
flame class hatred and to make his
auditors believe that in some mysterl-
Gus and unexplained way the national
administration is to blame for riots in
Rocky Mountain mining camps, and
that our form of government is in dam
ger on account of them.
He attacked the trusts in vigorous
fashion and did not seem to care if he
hurt the feelings of those multi
millionaire trust magnates who make
up the executive committee in charge
of Judge Parker'S campaign and who
secured his nomination by d trick. Or
course he laid all trusts at the door
of the tariff, but failed to explain why
trusts also exist in free trade countries
and why in our own country some or
the greatest trusts are upon articles
not protected by the tariff. Another
special feature of Mr.. Cockran's clo-
uucnt address was Il dcnunciation OF
the protective tariff as Il policy or
Ilundcr." He is evidently an cx-
tremiSt, unlike Judge Parker, who is
only Il mild rcformer who longs for ii
tariff for revenue only, such as brought
land altG drove the government. in:o
issuing bonds to pay its running eX-
penses. Perhaps the New York orator
forgot that he WAS speaking in Maine.
whose prosperity is absolutely depend
ent upon the maintenance of Il protcc-
tive tariff. our people know that the.
, free trade which Mr. Cochran wants
would close our pulp mills, ruin our
lumber industry and cut in half the
prices received by our farmers for their
. products. He might talk against the
tariff a hours daily the year through
and he would not carry Maine for the
Democracy on that issue. The people
4 of this State remember their own eX-
5 reriences and know their own condi-
/ tons too we'll to be fooled by any free
$ trade sophistries. and by the adroit
a presentation of abstract economic
e theories.