The Democratic advocate., 1908-09-18
A BREEZY LETTER
INDIGNANT WESTERNER GIVES HIS
OPINION OF The EAST
Says Western and Southern Men Are
the Only True Americans
Council, Bluffs, Iowa, August s..

Council. Bluffs, Iowa, August 8.
Editor of Harper's Weekly:
In your issue of July Is there is
a paragraph which, by some strange
fatality, seems to have escaped the
blue pencil of Mr.. Mofgan's censor
The paragraph is the last of a series
of vulgar diatribes protesting to be
a fair and judicial criticism of the pro-
ceedingS of the late convention at
Denver. The series is on level with
most Of the recent editorials of the
! Journal Of Civilization" which, in
substance, style, and logic, strongly
suggest, by the law of contrast, the
late George William Curtis. The
critic thrusts forward, as a Democrat,
that pygmy among the moral and po-
litical negations of which Belmont
and Ryan always keep varied as
sortment in stock, the unwept, unhon-
ored, and unsung Alton B. Parker,
and is greatly shocked because the
late candidate was not permitted to
insult the leader of the party to which
he ostensibly belongs by a set of reso-
lutions in fulsome adulation of the
fat bully from Buffalo who, during
his second term as President, aban-
doned the issue on which he was tri-
umphantly elected, and endeavored
to impose upon his party the Repub-
lican policy of special favors to the
banking interests, policy which was
forced through Congress by Republi-
can votes. The critic also sheds tears
over the sad fate of another of his
brand of Democrats, one Guffey whose
cold and crooked body never felt the
glow of drop of real Democratic
blood; who, after his State in it's
primaries had chosen a safe majority
OF Bryan delegates, compelled the
State convention to send to Denver an
uninstructed delegation, and then
tried to turn his whole bunch of de-
horned steers into Morgan's stock
yard, and was only prevented by be-
ing kicked out of court after his
property" had been attached. Par
no. e fratrum Colonel Guffy and Col
mel Harvey!
The uncensored paragraph, how
ever, seems to emit a genuine ray,
feeble though it be. It's general char
acter is suggested by the opening, as
follows: I'VE have been deeply i'm
pressed during the past week by what
we believe to be a vital truth. 1t is
this Despite constant manifesto
tions of seeming vagaries the Western
man is the true American"
| Half inadvertently and half uncon-
sciOuSly you have at last stumbled
upon half truth, and have expressed
it in the half-enthusiastic manner of
the new school-boy who has just
formed a speaking acquaintance with
the first letter Of the alphabet. Had
! hot hn
and the Southern man constitute the
true American you would have come
near to truths own heart
You concede, further, that the West
ern man is not radical, but you are
moved to sorrow as you contemplate
his "vagaries," which, however, you
explain on the ground that he hears
but one side of the story, and that
the true gospel of 26 Broadway, ow-
ing to a. lack Of zeal among it's mis-
sionaries. has not yet illumined his
darkened soul. Why is it that you
refuse to see or to conede that the
average Western man is the most
thoroughly informed on matters per-
tanning to economics, sociology, and
the science Of government of any av-
erage man in any section of the coun-
try, the Southern man standing next? p?
The most ignorant bigot in the West,
when he is at all honest, is the man
who still votes the Republican ticket.
That the Western man is Populist
or Democrat is no more due to the
fact that he reads Coin Harvey than
to the fact that he reads George Har-
vey. 1t is due to the fact that he
reads both, and that he is able to dis
tinguish between the genuine Coin"
and the counterfeit, and that he is
Independent enough to express his
preference. Bitter as the thought
may be to you, the West is cosmopoli-
tan, LIBERAL, and comparatively free,
while the East is provincial and SER
vile. In the West the voter still has
an alternative, and the politician is
compelled to respect and consult him,
while in the East the average voter
is chattel for whom the politician
has only contempt. In the West the
voters voice has a note of defiance,
while in the East it has degenerated
into whine Of supplication. In the
West the attitude is hope, and the
watchword is Reform" while in the
East the posture is that of despair,
and the password is "Kismet." In
the West the average school child has
red cheeks, while in your city seventy
thousand innocents carry hungrey
tstomachs to impossible morning
tasks. In the West the spirit is still
American and democratic, while in
the East it is European and imperial
istic. 1t is only in the West that it
is still possible for men like Bryan,
| La Toilette, and Folk to secure a fol-
flowing, while in the East your osten-
lsible leaders and honor-bearers, such
as Depew, Platt and Aldrich, ct i'd
ON. gen., are known to be the pup
pets of those who own and employ
them. In the West it is still possible
for human character to manifest it's
indefinite varieties, and to display the
infinite tints which in the morning
distinguish the flowers that bloom
in the gardens of Adonis. In the
East a decadent matefialism is fore
ing degenerate humanity back
through the cast-off moulds of primi-
tive society into one or another of it's
three dominant forms-the Thief, the
Slave, the Fool. 1t is in the East
where so-called colleges still teach
and editors affect to believe such
maxims as the following:
The Creator made the precious
metals that man might have money"
The precious metals afford the
best material for money"
"A real dollar must have intrinsic
value"
| ga eood dollar is one that ia good