Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1912-11-02

SAME THING CAN HAPPEN AGAIN.
A common assertion in the campaign
this year Is that the country Is too
big and too prosperous now to be af-
fected by change Of political policy
and administration. In an interview
answering this assertion former Rep
resentative James A. Tawney Of Min
nesota, says:
I'm July, 1892, after the nomination
of Harrison and Cleveland, the New
York Herald presented the same argu-
ment then In favor of change in the
political control Of our government
that is being made now when it said
editorially: No party can undo the
work of nature in the harvest field or
destroy the splendid accumulation of
enterprise and of business sagacity.
The country is so large and parties
are so small as compared with the in
fluence of the commercial interests of
the nation that the success Of this
party or the defeat Of that one can no
longer be regarded as disaster or
threat of disaster to our national pros
perity.'
1T was this line Of argument made
to the young men Of 1892 that led them
to believe that no matter which politi-
cal party was In control of the nation
al government, the good times which
were then enjoyed would continue un-
tnterruptedly as they had continued
for thirty-two years under the rule of
the republican party and the policy
of protection to American industry
and American labor.
within six months after a majority
of the people had voted a change In
the political control OF their govern
ment, placing the same in the hands Of
the democratic party on platform
advocating an industrial policy dia-
metrically opposed to that which had
controlled the industrial affairs OF the
American people for thirty-two years,
our mills and factories were closed
down. hundreds of thousands OF hon
est, industrious, laboring men were
travelling across and up and down the
continent in search of employment.
If the issue in this campaign could
be determined on November s only
by the men who passed through the
experience between 1893 and 1897 it
would not be necessary for the repub-
lican party to make campaign, for
there is scarcely q business man,
farmer or laboring man who expert
enced the hard times, the idleness and
the low prices of his products, who
would for a moment again vote to
place the party in power that wrought
such industrial and financial ruin as
the country experienced during that
period.
Unfortunately only about thirty
per cent of those who voted in 1892
will participate in the determination
of these issues in 1912. It Is the
young men in this campaign, as 1t was
the young men In 1892. who will de-
termine these issues. The young man
who casts his first vote on the 5th Of
next November was only one year old
when Cleveland was elected last time,
while the man who will cast his tenth
vote in states where they vote every
two years was only nineteen years
old then. These young men from
twenty-one to forty-one years Of age
today were either in their swaddling
clothes or in the schools and the col
leges when the country was passing
through that terrible experience re-
sulting from the change In 1892 from
the principles and policies of the re-
publican party to those of the demo-
cratic party.
TT is therefore the duty Of this class
of voters-these young men-7to give
to the consideration Of the issues in
this campaign most serious thought
before blindly voting upon the theory
that there is no relation whatever be-
tween the political control OF the ma
tional government and Of their indi-.
vidua1 or national prosperity when
such relation actually exists"