The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-05-08
A DEMOCRATIC HOPE.

Inc washington correspondent OF
the Evening Times in recent COM
manication called attention to the fact
that the democrats were hoping to be
able to organize the next national
house of representatives and that John
Sharp Williams would be the speaker,
while Champ Clark would head the
committee on ways and means
The condition is not by any means
overdrawn. The national leaders of
the democratic party are able and
astute politicians and they have sell
dom failed to put forth the strongest
man and present the issues they repre-
sent in the strongest possible manner.
The persistency with which they arise
from successive defeats gives them
somewhat of an air OF martyrdom and
a fidelity to principles that while false,
appeals to the restless and the dissatis-
fled.
But there are other reasons than
these why they hope to carry the lower
house at the coming election. The
republican party has been in control
of national politics for ten years, and
in that time there has grown up a
crowd of disappointed Office seekers
who realize that if they ever reap any
personal rewards or secure any favors,
it must be in remarkably short time.
This class of people is one of the
inevitable results of our system of
political parties and free government
They are those in whom envy and
malice are the Dredomiating traits,
and when their own efficiency, or
the refusal of the body polite to place
the public trusts in their hands, pre-
vents them from sharing in the re-
wards of party success, they become
disappointed and disguised
These with the thugs and repeaters
of the great cities and the morally ir-
responsible whose votes are offered
for sale in the market places, constitute
the floating vote of the nation which
il applied to certain states. is often
able to turn the tide of politics and
determine who shall make and admin
lister the law.
1t is a regrettable fact that all polit-
zeal parties make use Of the votes of
the first two of these classes. and it
is probable that one secures about as
many as the other so that there is no
serious results.
s. 1t is with the class of political
malcontents that the parties are most
concerned. for where the vote is near
ly evenly divided they often have the
balance of power.
The policy of the democrats has been
to create will-o'-the- wisp which these
people who influenced by the sordid
ambition for power are ready to follow
into the very boys of democracy.
Men whose party allegiance consists
only of their qualification of personal
ends are ever ready to listen to the
whisperings of malcontents.
Recent local elections throughout
the country have given the democrats
hope that those democrats at least who
Have an1iated with the republican
patty because there was more pros
poets of success for it than for its
opponent, will return to their demo-
cratic fold and that the combination
will make party strong enough at the
polls to elect majority of congress.
These would be scattered everywhere
throughout the country, the fight be-
ing waged in the districts and states
where the greatest. number of these
democratic allies are to be found. The
battle will not be fought on the ma
donal issues of the two parties-the
successes of the republican or the
failures of the democratic-but upon
local issues behind which the demo-
cratic influence will be carefully con-
eealed. BY this means the party man
agement hopes to blind the eyes Of the
people so that they may ride into
power while the public acclaims them
the champions of the masses.
What effect will this course have
upon the policies Of the nation? So
far as aggressive power is concerned
the democrats would be hopeless. and
this fact will be sounded from the
rams horns while the walls of the
political Jerico are circumnavigated.