The Idaho Republican., 1915-01-22
THAT JACKSON DAY" SPEECH

, Those hoosiers at Indianapolis
must have diluted with benzine the
grape-juce that they rendered Presi'
dent Wilson prior to his delivery Of
that jackson Day" speech.
| There are speeches and speeches
and at Indianapolis the president
made one fthem, if not both. Read
it one knows hardly whether to laugh
or cry, but if continued to the end
the dispassionate reader is liable to
be laughing until he cries.
The taffy with which he opened his
address would have had a better fla
vor had the pronoun been less fre-
quent, but no matter about that.
1t is when he tells how much he
loves the memory of General Jackson
because he was fighter, and we
think of the difference between the
way that Jackson would have done
some things and the way they have
been done, that we begin to smile
That smiles broadens into 4. real
laugh when we read"that "the Repub.
lican party has not had a new idea
in 80 years" and then remember thai
the most earnest work of the present
administration has been to cause to
crystalize into law the assassination
of the protective tariff which in Jack
sons prime John C. Calhoun, for
brief time, drew the state of South
Carolina out of the Union to accom-
plish, and which was embalmed in
the Confederate constitution four and
fifty years ago.
Again, despite the lack of new
ideas, how has the great republic
Jared during these past 80 years, and
how does the situation as they left
1t compare with that at present? And
during that time what was the Demo-
cratic minority in congress doing to
help?
Again, when as "a historian" he |
bade his audience take notice that
when the United States forgets it's
ardor for mankind a Democrat is
elected president, we are little un-
certain as to the historians" mean
ing. Does he mean that the people
at such time have grown reckless
and do not give continental what
happen? Or that whom the Lord
loveth, he chasteneth? Or that the
Lord keeps in mind that the country
cannot stand a Democratic admins
tration, or visitation of the seven
teen-year locusts, oftener than about
once in II years?
And what about Theodore? Is he
to have no credit when Democrats
meet to chant their paeons of VIC
tory? When the president says
"the past was necessary to the pres
ent," that becomes almost plagar-
ism. 1t is exactly what Joseph told
Pharaoh was necessary to provide
against the coming lean years.
Again, when the president said
that "the Republican party was
covert and refuge for those who are
afraid" and then in lofty stophic
told them, he was tired of remaining
in Washington and saying sweet
things and had, therefore, come to
indianapolis to celebrate Jackson day
in the real Jackson spirit, then it is,
sure enough, to laugh. AS old
Hickory" would have said: ut is
by the Eternal"
The presidents tribute to the In
dependent voter will not bear analy-
sis. There are few really inde-
pendent voters, there is a mighty
host which in the aggregate is but a
mob, with the same
order of mind that mob has when
It wants to hang suspected man Of
whose guilt or innocence they know
nothing.
To tell his party that 1t must work
TO catch this vote is probably what
be means by one of the new IDEAS"
After what those sterling progress
sive patriots, Roosevelt, Perkins, Pin
chot, etc., did in 1912, and tried to
10 in 1914, the term Progressive has 4,
ost much caste.
When the president assures us that
here is no money stringency, that is b
again to laugh. h
When he says the Democratic I
party is on trial, he at last gets down
20 a most serious fact. It is, and on
he curb its stock is being sold short I
every day. f,
When he tells of the program that
ne and his obedient hackers in con- u