The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-05-08

 Democrats something of the pride | which l felt in the achievement of l the Bridgeport Democracy in the last ! election Were Mir. Spellacy here, am sure that he would confirm me in l the declaration that no one feature i of the late campaign gave him g | richer satisfaction than the splendid i showing which you made here. What you did in Bridgeport is the sure forerunner of early Democratic vtc- tory in Fairfield county, the tightest and traditionally impregnabIe strong hold Of Republication in Connecti- cut, and with Fairfield county on the run and its Republican leadership in timidated and dissolved, the only point in the next election that will be left to dispute and to conjecture will be: How large a Democratic ma jority will Fairfield county roll up?" You may gather from what l have just said that I am not a pessimist. I am not 1 find it difficult to un- derstand how any Democrat can be a pessimist.
 TO hear some of our Republican critics one would imagine that in it's domestic concerns this country had gone to pot, under a Democratic re-
 
 shock or tremor four of the most ter rifying and disastrous years that this war-swept earth has known in all its history. One would imagine that under Democratic control the coun- try had actually lost the war instead of winning 1t more speedily, more eff ticiently, more cleanly, more glorious ly than ever a great war was won be- fore in all the whole history of the world. And finally to hear these prophets of pessimism one would suppose Democratic statesmanship was misrepresenting this great nation at the Peace Conference in Paris; that it was vacillating and incompe- tent and uninformed upon the great issues at stake, instead of voicing as it does. with greater clarity and pow CT than ever before have been given them the sublime ideals and historic aspirations of this republic, and in stead of commanding as it does by it's dominating intellect and high impar- tiality the trust and the love of the civilized peoples of the earth.
 Today, however. the Democratic party rapidly is drawing to itself the enlightened, thinking, forward-look- ing men of all creeds and of all parties, not alone because of its null l4LdTlOuS ana BlSanllC aCnleNeIIleU the splendor of whose fame fills the world; not alone because of the in spring genius of the great man who is the President of the republic, and the, foremost citizen of the world, Woodrow Wilson; but chiefly because it stands today as the official sponsor for the accomplished hope and as piraiOn of all the ages that are past, and the splendid aCtuality of all the ages that are to Come-the Parlia- ment of Man by which the nations of the earth are to be led into the green -. .astures and beside the still waters ,fe world wide peace. And if the Re ,a+ Iblican party persists in its fatuous ,orld thrilling and sweeping the hearts course of partisan opposition to this great ideal that is surging through and thrilling and sweeping the hearts of men everywhere, it's membership will shortly dwindIe to a handful of provincial partisans solaced by the cheering company of a band of wind tanning, discredited ex-Democrats ts and chronic malconents, like Bailey of Texas and Reed of Missouri and Harvey of Harvey's. But, fortunately for the grand old party and forum ately for the position of this country before the world, the Republican n leaders rapidly are being brought to see that such is the splendor of this world ideal and such the grasp that it has upon the souls of men, that it will wreck and ruin in utter disaster any party that has the stupidity or the audacity long to oppose it.
 Surely the record of our past achievements can inspire nothing but most roseate optimism in the hearts of all loyal Democrats We shall dc well, however, not to forget the sig nificant fact that can be read back through all the changing admins trations that have checkered our DO. litical history. It is the fact that re publics are frequently ungratefuI I is the fact that the sovereign court o. public opinion is more concerned with what is to come than with wha has been. Fortunately, however w can survey the future with as prouC and confident a vision as that witt which we contemplate the past Wha is the great issue going to be in tn, next campaign? Republican critics like peevish schooIboys. are carpin, with petulant envy at every act of tn, administration. Even the loftiest o those acts, those that will shine re splendent through the ages that ar
 
 of partisan jealousy. But from ou of all this welter of disgracefuI btck ering and unpatriotic attack. no clasl of honest thought has yet occurre substantial and sincere enough t raise it to the dignity of a nationa issue.
 ''The thread-bare problems of tn tariff, so long the bug-a-boo of Re publican spell-binders, have been de finitely removed from the arena c party politics as well as from tn clutch of avaricious interests, an have been put forever on a just an scientific basis by the non-partisa tariff commission, created in the earl months of democratic control. Tn Federal Reserve act, the most stu pendous domestic achievement of ou recent political history, which ha given to the country a financial elas ticity that enabled it to endure. with out panic or crisis, the serious cor traction of credit back in 1914, an an unprecedented expansion and ir flation of credit in the months an