The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-11-21

| The locks of the cell and the glass cast l in which the painting had reposed wer, broken. Strangely enough, the thief ol I thieves did not touch other pictures by
 
 l diaries, with no reason but the wolf s | some of them, on the contrary, holding | in absolute purity of conscience to some | sort of anarchism. and it is equally true
 that their votes (to the extent that they are citizens and can vote) are in the
 market for any party that caters to them
 but they are overbalanced many times | by men of no party who vote according | to their own ideas of social sanity and of health and progress in their own | lines of bread winning: and everybody knows that this latter element grows in | numbers year by year. It has always de- | termined the presidential election since 1864. Would anybody but fanatic ignore it in 1912?
 The People" Not Incendiary MT. Bryan has always made the mis- take of appealing to the voters who resenting the thrift or better luck ol their neighbors, want to strike at our whole commercial fabric and those con- captions of government on which that fabric rests. He could hardly cure him. self of this habit of mind now If he wanted to. MT. Bryans seeming popu- larity has tempted into the same sort of preachments other democrats who have come into office during his time. It is possible that they too forget that the people" of whom MT Bryan speaks, when joined with that stalwart sect which would never knife any demo- cratic ticket, lacks from 500,000 to l. 500,000 votes of carrying the country; for between these figures did the pop ular majorities run which over whelmed Bryan in 1896, 1900 and 1908, and in 1904 the Bryanized party which made stalking horse of Barker.
 Nine-tenths of the people, those of them who can vote have business or profession or trade of some kind in which they are making or hope to make some money. They take it as automatic that what @ man has laid by, in money or In credit established, and what foundation he has laid for his business, shell be his on the theories of property which their grandfathers and fathers held and of which the law books speak; and the political theorist who wants to be elected to office must not take liberties with them. The lit- tie groceryman or matchmaker or rail- road engineer getting good wages, the farmer who has got or is getting out of debt and sees his way to leaving something for his children, goes to hear Mir. Bryan speak, applauds him ecstas- ically; goes home, thinks and votes against him.
 How many, I wonder will recall that the Kansas City platform of 1900 contained not one word for the prin- ciple of tariff for revenue? Who can recall all the fantasies, absolutely un- related to historical democracy. that the 1900 and 1896 platforms did con- tai l. 6- dressed largely to a conglomerate rad ical element, with which democracy had never claimed kin.
 Of course, all the blame is not to be put on MT. Bryan, and those who fell under his influence, for what hap pened between 1895 and 1910. There were older and wiser men than he in public life who knew that he was riding the party to defeat yet made no protest
 If some fad of 1912 can carry Kan sas and South Dakota for the demo- crats, has anybody an arithmetic by which they can compensate for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, for Ohio or for Illinois--for the same in- fiuences that control the state of New York will control nowadays the state Of Illinois. A few days ago l was talk ing with an Illinois republican of the sort too that would not vote for any democrat alive for any state or national office who was in the legislature Of that state for some years and is now on the bench. He told me that any clean man, on straight democratic plat form. the kind that the democratic leaders talked in all the big states in 1910, will certainly get the electoral vote of the state in 1912, but that the ablest and purest democrat In the land, with principles of destruction, would not have a ghost of chance.
 "Progressives"
 We know pretty well what progress sive republican is. He is man who has got into his head that the republican party has the wrong end, or the unpopu- lar end of the tariff question and who believes, or professes to believe, that the democrats are not to be trusted for rational reforms in the tariff or any thing else. But what is progressive democrat? When a man proclaims him. self progressive democrat I assume that he wants to advocate some crochet which has not to this time, to say the least commended itself to the rank and file of the democratic party; that he knows he must be for the present voice crying in the wilderness, and merely car- ries a martyrs hope that in other years his party of the country will rally to his beliefs. When we talk, not of cam- paign labels, but of true progress, of the abrogation of bad laws and the cor rection of administrative abuses, we know | that the first practical step to be ac- complished is to carry the elections No man can do much for his fellow suf- ferers in this country by crying from tha housetops and nothing more. Since 1908 | the democrats have probably done more | for themselves and everybody else in l Ohio than in any other state. They have | put into successful operation there a code of taxation so just that the assessed value of railroad properties has been doubled or trebled and no resistance has | been made, and so effective that taxes paid in different localities run from 6C
 cents to S1 on the $100--the latter maxi
 mum being now fixed by the law; they | have brushed cobwebs of corruption out | of the state house and have put the many | institutions of the state on a business
 basis. They did this by electing a gover-
 nor in 1908 and governor and legislature
 in 1910. In New York the democrats elect | ed the legislature as well as the governor | last year, and, in conditions by no means
 the best they have accomplished some l things to be proud of; there has beer | some legislation for which the plain peo- ple--merchants, bankers, farmers, wage earners and all sorts-had been clamor. | ing in vain, and they have routed thos. cohorts which had made merchandise oi the passing of laws. In New Jersey, II spite of party divisions, some wholesome
 and popular laws have been enacted ant
 administration has been greatly purified 1 and this the democrats have accomplish ed by having had governor and legis l lature in office this year. In Nebraska the democrats are not making any re forms because last year the republicans
 through MT. Bryan's, antics, captured tn, 1 state gOvarnment