The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1912-12-07
AFTER MARCH FOURTH
HARD TO TELL JUST WHAT THE
COUNTRY MAY LOOK FOR.
Dealing With Office-HuntIng Army
VIII Be the First Of President
Wilson's Trials-And Then
More Serious Difficulties.

Democratic in both branches, the SEN
ate majority margin will be very
small. II the Republicans stand to-
gether on important issues they will
constitute a very powerful minority.
II Emergencies develop in the senate
rial majority in respect to tariff sched-
ules or any other important party
measure there may be series Of
deadlocks that will prevent action.
And then there is DR.. Woodrow Will
son. VIII there be complete harmony
between the new congress and the
new president? Nobody knows at this
time.
The thing that looms largest In
many Democratic minds in connection
with the accession to power in nation
al affairs of the Democratic party is
the distribution Of the patronage. II
the civil-service law is not eluded-
and there is no reason to expect that
the next president will permit it to
be sidetracked-the place changes
will not be SO sweeping as they were
under the first Cleveland administra-
ton. But the appointments which the
new president will make will run far
up in the thousands and will affect ev-
cry state and congressional district
In the view of many Democrats the
most important of all Democratic max
inns is that Jacksonian screed-"To
the victors belong the spoils." 1t is
fatefully certain that there will be a
great army of place hunters from all
over the map to invade Washington
as soon as the new president takes up
quarters at the White House.
Speaking of the prospective and in
evitable office-hunting army that will
besiege the new president, Col. Henry
Watterson of the Louisville Courier
Journal. declares that upon the very
threshold of his administration the
new president will have rough work
to do. Colonel Watterson predicts that
"the onrush of Office hunters will sur
pass anything ever known before"
Concerning the appeals for appoint
ment that will be made upon the next
president the Courier-Journal editor
u
the White House and assail the new
occupant during all his waking hours
and pursue him in his sleep and
dreams, morning, noon and night. He
will never escape from the mean, sor-
did and brazen in the rank ignominy
of self-seeking.
Colonel Watterson's picture Of what
awaits DR.. Wilson as patronage dis
tributor Is not too fancifully touched
up. Far more serious difficulties, how
ever, than standing off and sending
back the office-hunting brigades will
soon be encountered II the new presi-
dent happens to have some ideals as
to legislative policy that differ from
those which the congressional major
ity may attempt to put through. In
the Democratic platform adopted at
the Baltimore convention not one
word is said about maintaining the pro-
tective principle in the advocated re-
draft OF the tariff. In the platform
emphasis is placed upon the declara-
ton favoring the speedy and extensive
reduction Of the schedules. II was In
reference to this plank that Governor
Wilson time and again in his cam
paign speeches remarked that "a plat
form is not a program" Frequently
he told his audiences In manufacture
ing sections: 81 do not believe in free
trade or anything like It." BY any
thing like It" he must have meant, I'M