The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1908-07-17
A II subscriptions payable 10 advance
FRANK E. HOWE. Editor and Publisher
Inc Democratic Platform.

The Springfield Republican, an In.
dependent Democratic newspaper,
sizes up the Democratic platform as
follows
las said to have been originally !
planned or desired by Mr.. Bryan this
document was to be a model at least
Of breyity--a tabloid platform OF post
card size which would be known and
read among all voters. But instead
1t Is to expand apparently from a post
card message into long letter with
a score or more of explanatory post
into rivalry with
the republican platform IN This res.
poet and promising to achieve over
that formidable volume of utterance
an easy victory. This is not what
may be called a fatal bunder, but it
may be called a mistake. 1t would
have been better to have gone back to
the old plan of presenting leading
party principles and reforms with a
breyity to arrest attention and invite
the popular reading. But It is be-
coming the fashion now In American
politics to substitute for declaration
of party principles an address to the
people which shall 20 on to elucidate
principles and demands and arraign-
ments as they are stated. Brevity
of statement sometimes exposes a par
ty to misinterpretation, and this
seems to explain the change. Never
theless it is one to be deplored.
What the speech of Chairman Bell
forecasts in the way of a campaign
program the plat form, as it energies
from the committee, bears out. It's
points of difference with the repub-
lican document are not generally rad
ical or noticeable except in taking up
those Roosevelt policies so-called with
the Chicago convention voted down
The anti-in junction plank practically
goes no further than to express out
loud what the republican plank was
intended originally to say and did not
quite dare to. In the matter of rail-
road regulation the Denver conyen-
ton will simply add to the republican
plank Mr. Roosevelt's physical valu-
lation demand throw in word for the
maintenance of state power over in.
terstate commerce, and let il 90 at
that. Mr.. Koosevelt's eight hour and
employers liability demands will find
here the approving recognition which
was more vaguely and grudgingly ac-
corded by the Chicago convention.
The Democrats also line up with
the president on the income tax--tak-
ing their old position in favor of a
constitutional amendment and rather
significantly abandoning the old opin-
ion that way might be found
through the supreme court itself, "as
hereafter constituted" to validate an
income tax law without constitutional
amendment. And here the democrats
become more conservative than the
president for he has advised Con-
gress that 1t might possibly devise a
way to overcome the courts decision
against such a tax-which meant sim
ply what the Bryan democrats meant
in 1896, that the court might revise
its Judgment of 1895 II another in.
come tax law were enacted and
brought to the test.
The democrats are with the presi
dent and against his party also in the
matter of publicity in campaign con.
tributions and expenditures, and they
are against his party if not the pres
ident in the matter of popular cleo
ton of senators-both of which pos
itions are well taken and will streng
then the democracy greatly with the
people. Helpful TO the same end ant
indicative of Bryans leaning to more
moderate courses, is the party's shell
wing of the money question for the
present beyond declaration in favol
of an emergency currency of som,
sort or another. And the democrac,
puts itself ahead of both republican
| president and party in stand agains
imperialism's demand for great ant
| costly ornaments.
| Thus with these few and admirable
l exceptions it is the evident purpose O
the democratic leaders to appeal t
the people on behalf of the republ
can president as against his own PAL
ty, Nor in doing so does the Bryal
party react or retreat toward the re
] publicanism of 1896 or 1900 It is III
republican position which has bee
: moved forward, on the great econon
;. ic questions of the time, and not tn
Bryan democratic position which ha
moved backward. If the Bryan den
ocrats are found now standing prett
close by the president II is becaUs
the latter has become located on den
ocratic ground.