Los Angeles herald., 1908-02-15
THE DINNER PAIL

T HE expression "the full dinner pail'
was not adopted hastily or heed
II lessly as a campaign catch phrase,
but after it had been talked over by
President Mckinley, Mark Hanna,
Myron I. Herrick Loornis of the United
Press and another newspaper writer
who is now in Los Angeles. Recent
events have injured the prestige of this
Republican, slogan. The full dinner pail
will not be a pet subject with Republi-
can orators at the coming campaign.
The Democrats, however, will have
word or two to say about it, and may
refer from time to time to the mar
velous "system" by which the dinner
pals of the United States have been
emptied into the coppers and kettles
of magnates. millionaires, trusts and
traitors to the republic.
We wish to state, with a most ac-
curate and intimate knowledge of this
interesting subject that the prosperity
idea was not seized by the Republican
candidate in a spirit of reckless ire
sponsibility and a desire for power at
any price But we believe that Presi-
dent Mckinley was himself at that par
ticular crisis of his affairs absolutely
at the mercy, pecuniarily speaking, of
the f1nanciers who usurped the oppor-
tunity that chance and a good mans
troubles had given them to foist them
selves upon a patient nation as the
statesmen, wiseacres and leaders that
most assuredly and positively they
were NOT. 1t was the hapless condi-
tion of William Mckinley as business
man, combined with the avarice of his
nation to the trusts and the spoilsmen.
We make this statement with a
preparedness to back it by cir
cumstantiality and detail that, we
fancy, will invite neither jeer nor
skeptical criticism.
Major Mckinley, to give him
the title by which he was best
known to his home folks and his
friends, was as badly befooled by
the dinner pail dodge as was the
poorest iron worker from Cleve-
land who marched shouting
through the streets of Canton in
the memorable first campaign,
with his head filed with visions
of a long line of dinner pals, all
full to overAowing, and always
full to overf1owing, with the good
things of this life, unto the end
of his lifel
Major Mckinley believed that his
policies were to bring halcyon days
for the American workingman; thai
the breadwinner would earn so readily
and so steadily that his wife ano
daughters and young sons would nt
longer have to toll in the factory or the
workshop. A family man. he believed
in the family idea; believed that tht
head of the family should be the pro
wider; that he should have the oppor'
tunity of providing; that the son!
should be trained to be efficient work
ers and providers in their turn; that th'
daughters should be trained for house
keeping on the supposition that the!
would always have something to keel
house with.
The Republican party was appealing
to the American people through thei
stomachs, if you will. but as the bes
fed nations are the worlds best work
ers. the economical and industrial de
sign that was behind the prandia
imagery was sufficient apology for tn
crudeness of the parable
Having committed themselves to tht
"line of talk the Republican leader
should have bethought themselves o
! the characteristic Of human nature an
remembered that at the first sign of tn
abatement Of the plenitude of the din
ner pail the people would murmur lik
the Israelites in the wilderness and as
what had become of the promise
| plenty
i Today the greatest weakness of tn
national Republican party lies in tn