The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1910-07-20
NO CRIME TO BE A DEMOCRAT.

NO CRIME TO BE A DEMOCRAT.
Now that we are approaching
state election we cannot resist the
opportunity of making plain our at
titude toward those who vote differ
emily from ourselves. Some very
stupid people seem to have harbored
the idea in their little cocoanuts that
we want to see the Democratic par
ty perish from the face of the earth
just as perished the Red Man from
the Eastern forests and the buffalo
from the Montana plains.
This is not so-either their think
tanks have run down or are moving
backwards. We should feel sorry
enough to see the party planted by
the scholarly JEFFERSON and wa
tered by the rugged JACKSON sick
en- and die from the neglect of its
own friends. No, we do not want to
see the Democratic party turn its toes
to the daisies. What we do want it
to do is clean up and be respectable.
1t is true that few times we
have asked the Democrats to come
over in a body and vote the Republi-
can ticket and make it unanimous,
but that was when they had no can
didate of their own worth fooling
with-no other time. Two parties
are just as necessary in a republic
as two stirrups are to a mans sad
die, and, needless to say, both par
ties as well as both stirrups should
be sound as a second growth hickory.
Everybody knows the Democratic
party has habit of taking up with
strange doctrines, running off after
false gods, seeing ghosts, having
nightmares, ringing in false alarms,
and monkeying with the ballot box.
No wonder, then, that from a ma
llOudl SIdhupOlhI IhS pSOpiC oiS
afraid to put any weight on the
Democratic stirrup.
We do not need the Democrats in
the Republican party so far as ma
tional questions are concerned; but
we do insist on Democrats throwing
away their rag dolls and being big
ger men. Now and then a Democrat
gets his eyes open to the truth of
these things and, wishing to align
himself with the party of progress,
bids his former friends long politi-
cal farewell. He joins the Republi-
can host. But this is a sad picture
to contemplate. This, we think, is
the wrong thing for him to do. He
should stay in the Democratic party
and preach the gospel of national
progress to the sinners of his
own political household. He should
insist on his friends taking a step
forward and setting their eyes on
the future, instead of Dragging about
the past, and help them to see the
utter folly of clinging to dead is
sues as well as trying to steal their
way to power when they cannot pull
enough votes to land them at the
polls. He should point out the fact
that a broadminded, progressive
Democrat stands just as high in the
estimation of his neighbors, and is
as highly respected by the leaders
of the Republican party, as a Repub-
lican himself. And he should prove
] this assertion by citing the cases
where President Taft has appoint
ed progressive Democrats to
high positions in the government.
President Taft's selection of
JACOB NJ. DICKINSON as a mem
/ ber of the cabinet and of Judge
| HORACE H. LURTON, another Ten
nessee-born Democrat, as a member
of the Supreme court, furnishes
abundant proof of the PRESIDENT s
realization that a healthful political
competition must be nationally recog-
nized and that honest, wholesome
| Democrats who still adhere TO the
faith of the party's founders have a
right to be en- earth.
Ladies travelling suits to close out