The Plymouth tribune. (Plymouth, Ind.) 1901-1911, 1906-04-05

Alton b. Parker's appearance as a
sectionalist is likely to be as humiliat-
ing to hins aud as embarrassing to his
party 10 Us his advent in the role OF
a leader an 1904. In n speech at Guar
~l0ttesville, y. c., he told the South that
it was its duty to seize the control of
the Democratic party of the country,
and to depose the men who have been
holding sway for the past dozen years.
Nebraska and New York, he says, have
been running the Democracy in recent
times, and il is the South's duty now
TO take the reins. 1.-The time has come
he declared, when the really effective
Democrats of the country should be
recognized. and when they themselves
should no longer hesitate, decline or re-
fuse to seek or to accept those honors
which are their just due for work well
done. 1t may possibly be that the party
will go to defeat again, but since 1896
it has done nothing else under Northern
leadership, and certainly it cannot do
worse"
The tone of this advice to the South
to assume the dictatorship i'm the De-
mocracy will be resented by those
Northern Democrats who care enough
about what Parker says to take any
notice at all of it. Sane Southern lead
ers win be a little distrustful of this
sort of talk. Many Northern Demo-
Gratis, as well as many Republicans,
have often said that Democratic ma
tional conventions ought to treat the
South with a little more consideration.
They ought occasionally to let a South
ern man, when he is capable and popu-
lar, have some chance to get on either
the first or the second end of the ticket.
In recent elections the South has fur
nished about all the electoral votes that
h Democratic party has rolled up. As
a matter of policy as well as of fair
ness it would be well for the Democ-
racy to let a Southern man. when he
has tce requisite qualifications, get an
opportunity to figure as a national lead
er. Since 1860 a Southern aspfrant for
President would get as little quarter in
a national Democratic convention as
Boil Ingersoll would have received in
the college of cardinals If he had pre-
scented himself as a candidate for Pope.
Democrats of all sections of the c0un-
try who are safe and sane will reject
Parker's counsel. Reasonable men have
been asking equality for the South in
the matter of presenting candidates
and formulating policies. Parker adj
yises the South to demand dominance
i'm the Democracy as a matter of right.
For the sectionalism by the North and
West which has been the rule in the
Democracy for over forty years he
would substitute a Southern sectional
ism He tells the South to seize the
control of the national Democracy, and
frame its platforms and put up its can
didates. At a time when all good Amer
leans are hoping that se~ctionalism in
the country's politics has died out, or is
on the point Of dyils out, Parker comes
forward as an ad.tcate of a new sec
tionalism. William L. Yancey, in the
Charleston convention of 1860. de-
nounced the Douglas Democrats for al
lowing freesoilism to spread all over
the North. and demanded that hereafter
the South should hut out the North
from a share in the selection of creeds
and candidates for the Democratic par
ty. Alton b. Parker appears in the role
of Yancey today. The Yancey spirit
was sufficiently strong in the Demo
cratic convention of forty-six years ago
to split the Democratic party in the
middle, and to p~recipitate a rebellion
whose effects are still felt in the South.
John Randolph would have called Par
e a doughface-a Northern man with
Southern principles IL Parker's sec
tionalism rules the Democratic conven-
ton of 1908 its candidate will be even
more disastrously defeated than was
the Democratic candidate of 1904.-St.
Louis Globe-D Democrat.