The herald-advance. (Milbank, S.D.) 1890-1922, 1904-09-16
Its Professions and Promises
Compared with Its
Performances.
breaches the Gospel Of Discomfort and
Wastes Time id Obstrucling Wise
and Beneiicent Republican
Policies.

Congressman J. Adam Beie tells Of
meeting a typical member of the party
OF promises and calamity howlers. The
Democrat had just come out Of a saloon
when he told BeIe h. had been buying
some lining for his uulerclothes. LII
reply to Bede's query as to how he was
getting on. the unfortunate .(esciple OF
Jefferson answered:
THAT his horse went dead anu his mule
went lame,
And he lost six COWS in j poker game;
Then a hurricane came, on a summers day,
And blew the house where he lived. away;
Aud an earthquake came when that was
gone,
And swallowed the land that the house
stood on,
Then the tax collector soon came round
Aad charged him up with the hole in the
ground
Bede said that hi, friend thought that
was carrying the single tax too far. But
X you could ~analyze his case and those
OF all chronic complainers and kickers
you would find that, out of a hundred
OF them, at least ninety-eight ought TO
- out and kick themselves.
Short on Performance.
Democrats do not know the meaning
Of the word "performance." when ap-
piled to doing anything for the gen
eral good, the Advancement of the hu-
man race, or the betterment of man
kind. AS a party 1t has been trying
t. write it for more than u full round
century, and yet it has not succeeded in
forming the first letter. 10 do anything
constructive or of permanent benefit
seems utterly beyond It's moral and
psychic conception, or physical capacity
- perform. Its normal attitude is with
;ts face to the past and It's back to the
future. 1t never sees an opportunity UNI
eli! the issue has been permanently set
tied by the Republican party aud public
sentiment. Then it will stand up. with
unblushing and nconceivable ~effrontery,
and say: Il did it."
If the question Of l~ecomotion. with
II. depended upon the two limbs of prom
ise and performance, it would limp
through its course a loatlsoma deformity.
The promise leg would reach several
times around the earth and then To the
moon, while the performance member
could not be found, intact. with Il pow
erful magnifying glass. Il has been a
helpless victim Of promi>.phobia for a
hundred and one years, aud there is not
a single symptom Of relief in sight. The
disease is conceded by the best author
tiles to be fatal, but a slow death car
r;es its own peculiar form Of retributiye
punishment.
Founded on a Mistake.
Jefferson. its father. while a man Of
deep learning and con>unmate diplo-
macy, hated Washington. and early OPP
posed the cardinal principles Of the Fed.
eral Government. He organized the
Democratic party TO AID him in this OPP
position. Washington and Hamilton
wanted a strong protective government.
Jefferson wanted a weak Government
that would govern the least" Founded
on the idea of resentment, resistance, ne
cation, subversion and an academic and
false conception Of personal privilege,
the party has quite naturally been
"forninst' all sane measures directed
toward the healthy progress OF the coun-
try and the real advancement Of its peo-
pie. Being a party Of opposition and
obstruction it's policy has been to preach
calamity and foster discomfort: to prom
Use everything and actually do nothing.
Party Odium Under Jackson.
II Jefferson was the founder of De-
mocracy, Jackson is its patron saint. At
ter the Jeffersonian period. 1SO1-2o, came
the ~Jacksonian, 1S25-4O. The signiti-
canoe of the Jackson era Of Democracy
lies in the fact that he was able to build
q machine from the rabble or the less
educated classes, that enabled him act
TALLY to assert his claims in conflict with
the Constitution and against the idea
OF Republicanism He assumed a posi-
ton between Congress and the people, as
- ,N~ -. = 4 -. ~at.t 4 30 H. -
public. The curse Of Jackson's ad-
Ministration was that it weakened re-
spect for law. The first clear symptom
of the decline Of a healthy political spirit
was, the election and reelection Of Jack
son to the Presidency. His administra-
ton paved a broad way for the demon
alizing transformation OF the American
people. Under jackson, politics were
~vulgarized and American society was de-
prived Of its rightful influence over gov
erument.
P%artisans, Not Patriots.
The twenty years from the defeat Of
Van Buren, in 1910 to the defeat of
Douglas in 1860 brought additional dis
aster and odium upon Democratic ad-
ministration. The strength of the party
has always rested in the Solid South.
and the uneducated riffraf Of our great
cities. During the years mentioned the
Southern Democracy pursued a policy Of
territorial expansion, not out Of patriotic
or broad motives, but for the sole pur-
pose of increasing the number Of slave
States, and thus preserve the sectional
balance in the Senate These years are
memorable in history for the struggle
for territorial acquisition, the struggle
over the Wilmot Proviso, the Compro-
mise Of 1850, the repeal Of the Missouri
Compromise, for the long agony in Kan
sas, for the sensational bred Scott de-
cision, and for the reconstruction of the
party on strictly sectional lines.
Rapid Moral Decay.
During al these weighty history-mak-
Ing years, the Democratic party was
49, -;uinn ~accomnlicA Of the Southern