The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1905-11-02
THE TEACHINGS OF EXPERIENCE.

Iatrlck Henry SAID tnat the only
light by which his feet were guided was
the lamp of experience. This is the
lamp by which the voters i'm Ohio and
Pennsylvania should guide themselves,
as its light gives infallible direction.
| Let them recall which they can cas-
lily do, how many times within recent
Years the Democrats, the same men
who are now seeking their votes upon
various preteXts, have been equally
clamorous, equally insistent as today.
| Their charges against the party in
power have been as vicious and their
own promises as to vast improvements
in administration have been as strenu-
Gus as today.
What has been the invariable result?
The accession to power by the Dem
| ocrats has been the instantaneous
| throwing to the winds of every pretext
and profession by which they deluded
the voters. Instead of bringing in a SUI
perior class of officials and appointees,
| of sweeping clean the Augean stables
| of official corruption" to use their ia
vorite phrase. they have invariably
famished by long abstinence from the
public crib and determined to make up
for lost time. The only truth that they
persisted in as to their former utter
ances was as to the extent of the cor
rupti"n of the Republicans, and they
regarded their being entrusted with
power as license to improve upon the
| vicious example set by those whom
they had turned out. They acted as
formation or stoppage of abuses. but
wanted to turn out one class which had
fed full in order to put in another set
to feed themselves to repletion.
| There has never in the history of
either of the States been a failure Of
the Democrats to take precisely this
view of the situation. Their success
was the unleashing of a horde Of spoils-
men upon everything in the State that
afforded pasturage and a voracious de-
vouring of the public's substance.
The force of this statement would be
broken if the men who are now clam
| cring to get in could point to single
| instance in either State when, after
they got in they made the use of the
power entrusted to them as they had
firmly promised when they were ap-
pealing to the people for their votes
On the contrary, every Democratic sue
cess in either Ohio or Pennsylvania has
been carnival of spoils in which the
State and all it's institutions and inter-
ests have suffered severely. Time and
again candidates have been elected to
important Offices in Ohio and Pennsyl-
vania upon the Democratic ticket with
the fairest expectations of what they
would be able to accomplish for the
benefit of the Commonwealths They
had the most magnificent opportunities
to build themselves up into command
ing positions in the esteem of the peo-
pie. There was every reason for the
hope that they would do this A very
large proportion of them have been
men of the highest private character
and standing in their communities, and
there was basis for the belief that they
would add to their reputation and
would accomplish in the wider field of
the whole State. The obscurity into
which these men have lapsed after
their term of office ended--the fact that
not one of them remains at the front
today-is immensely significant. Ii
shows that no matter how worthy they
might be individually. how high their
own character might have been in the
| communities in which they had lived,
thew n tn wifi, a
the viciOusness and unscrupulousness
OF the men behind them. who were only
using them as decoys and blinds by
which to attain to spoiIs. A recital of
| the disappontments of the people of
| Pennsylvania to obtain reform through
| the agency of the Democratic Party
would make long chronicle. 1t would
make a much longer one in Ohio, be-
cause there the people have more fire.
quentIy tried the experiment of bet
tering things by putting Democrats in
power.
| There is no escaping the teachings of
experience that the Republican Party can
be much better trusted to purify itself,
to detect and punish those who misuse
office than the Democrats can be trust
ed for any Improvement either in the
character Of the men who are given
office and place or in the methods that
| they Will adopt when there.
| Amid all these tornadoes of charges
/ denunciationS and defamations the
great white fact shines perpetuaIly and
clearly like the Washington Monument
rising above a dust storm that the Re-
publican Administrations in the States
of Ohio and Pennsylvania have been
| throughout all the years singuIarIy
able, progressive, patriotic and honest.
Both of the States have a financial
standing second to no community i'm the
world, their taxes are lighter very
much than in most of the States, there
has been really no deep-seated graft or
corruption, the States moneys have al
ways been honestly collected and prop
erly disbursed. and in spite of the low
ness Of taxation both States are upon
the highest plane of modern civilization
In the number and excellence of their
asylums, hospitals. reform schools.
charitable and benevolent institutions