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Conservative , 11
FUTIM5 IIKYANISHI.
It is announced by a member of the
Bryan national committee that during a
recent tour in the soutkho found a
general sentiment in favor of dropping
free silver in ( ho next national conven
tion and raising other issues. Ho re
ported the party to bo weary of thrum
ming on the same old single string and
desirous of more varied music. This
feeling was disclosed in the gulf states
and up the Atlantic coast , even to North
Carolina. As to the candidate , how
ever , ho reported the feeling universal
that it must be Bryan. The plan illus
trates the futility of the present plans of
the party management. The largo in
dependent and thinking democratic vote
of the country is left out of the new
calculation , and there seems to bo no
appreciation of the fact that the voters
are divided into several classes. There
are those who follow the party any way
and look to its politicians for reward.
Others look more to political principles
than to mere expedient declarations
made by the party. Still others are
moved by consideration of principle and
weigh carefully the character of party
leadership. The two latter classes con
trol elections in this country. They are
the voters who elected Mr. Cleveland
and who turned and elected President
McKiuley , and will elect him again re
gardless of what platform declarations
may bo made by Mr. Bryan's party.
They will do this because of the pro
found distrust of the leadership of Mr.
Bryan s party. Even this last proposi
tion proves those leaders to be either
without convictions or to lack the
courage to carry them out. There is a
total lack of what is called character in
the Bryan leadership. The politicians
who have charge of Mr. Bryan's party
go up and down the country jauntily re
marking that white is black , prophe
sying and predicting , jumping from
issue to issue , out of the frying pan into
the fire and back again , and telling the
public that frying pan aud fire are both
cold when they are both hot. The great
dividing line of principle between the
two parties is lost sight of by these men.
They fail to understand that the views
held by nieii on either side of that line
meet always at one point , are focused
upon one place and are patriotically in
tended to accomplish the same purpose ,
though by widely different methods.
From the beginning of our party
divisions these two schools of political
principles have for the most part sought
the welfare , happiness and prosperity of
all the people , and the issue between
them has been upon methods , not upon
the result desired.
The Bryan cult has taught a blind and
deaf opposition to everything that is. It
began in a platform attack on the constitution -
stitution itself. It threatened to break
down judicial protection to life and prop
erty. It menaced the civil service
and declared its purpose to return to that
sum of all diseases in government , the
spoils system in the public service. It
shook a portentous fist at every interest ,
grudged the success of the prosperous
aud called the unthrifty to prey upon
; ho thrifty. The leaders who made such
a fight and lost it , and have kept on and
lost in every election since , until their
party has not a governor nor a senator
in the north , ore men who do not enjoy
; he confidence of the best men in their
own party , aud whoso ways and purposes
are scoffed at aud repudiated by the in
dependent and thoughtful voter.
Mr. Bryan never had any but a
spectacular value in politics. He paid
himself out for all this value that was in
liim in 1896 , and got value received , in
defeat. He put nothing on the political
market and got nothing ia return. But
he personally enjoyed it as a boy enjoys
playing circus , and being so self-suffi
cient that he cannot be flattered , has
kept himself before the public , and has
only impressed a few of his party to
take him at his own estimate of himself.
His oratorical displays are gilded plati
tudes. They rank with those articles of
household ornamentation which are con
structed by gilding flour barrels and
pasting lithographs on them , or illumi
nating soap boxes and wheelbarrows ,
"to make home beautiful. " The com
monplace among phrases are uttered by
him , with uplifted hand and eye , ' in
tremolo , but , after all , they are com
monplace and non-impressive to any
thinker.
Ho will no doubt again lead his party
through an eruption of the parts of
speech , armed with mullein stalks , to
worse defeat than before , and will then
take his place in the limbo of the for
gotten , a speaker who never gave plain
utterance to any great principle , a leader
who never won a victory , a prophet as
uncertain as a uickel-in-tho-slot machine ,
aud a politician who was merely a
curiosity by reason of his eyes being set
in the back of his head. San Francisco
Call , January 2 , 1900.
The Chicago Times-Herald ( rep. ) ad
vises the Michigan legislature to repeal
the sugar bounty law. "State bounties
for sugar-beet growers or manufacturers
represent the most obnoxious form of
state paternalism and class legislation , "
it eays. "The legislature has no more
right to divert the revenues to such a
purpose than it has to pay five cents a
head for a particular species of cabbage
or turnips. A bounty on beet sugar
accomplishes no good purpose. The
incentive it supplies to grow sugar beets
or to make beet sugar is unnatural auc
hence pernicious in its ultimate results
It is a tax on the community , for the
bounty that is paid to a few manufac
turers out of the state treasury must
come out of the pockets of the people
It has no defense. "
It is doubtless
CUUMPACKEK.
true that Presi
dent McKinley will use his influence to
smother the scheme pushed by
Representative Crumpacker of Indi
ana , for cutting down the rep
resentation of the south in the house
of representatives and the electoral
college to an extent corresponding
with the reduction in its votes since the
negroes have been generally disfran
chised. Very likely , too , the President
will succeed in preventing any radical
action , although it will be difficult for
him , even with all of his power , to sup
press the proposition for a collection of
census statistics on the subject of voting
in the different states. One difficulty
about that is the fact that Mr. Crum
packer , who is pushing the scheme , ap
pears to be a man of strong convictions ,
who is deeply impressed which the
justice and necessity of some action by
congress. Another is the fact that
many of his associates in the house share
his opinion that , at the very least , there
should be an investigation of existing
conditions , even if the party bo not now
committed to an attempt to change these
conditions by cutting down the represen
tation of the south. New York Even
ing Post.
THE CONSERVATIVE
WATKUKD STOCK.
TIVE is indebted to
Paul Morton , vice-president of the
Santa Fe railway , for the twenty-ninth
annual report of the Kansas City stock
yards.
This document shows that five million
nine hundred and sixty-three thousand
and fifty-seven head of cattle were
handled , fed and watered during the
year 1899 by those yards. The money
value of this "watered stock" was one
hundred and twenty million nine hun
dred and forty-six thousand four hun
dred and thirty-nine dollars. More than
ten millions of dollars worth each of the
twelve mouths of the year.
If there had been "real prosperity" in
the country , such as our populist
friends prate about , the enumeration
table would have been dead of "nervous
prostration. " How long will the farm
ers persist in their plutocratic extortions
for watered stock ?
"The president has given his whole
tariff case away , " says the Springfield
Republican ( ind. ) . 'The exigencies of
his imperial policy have compelled him.
to kick over the ladder by which he
climbed first to n national reputation ,
and then to a presidential nomination ,
and the presidency itself. It is a queer
situation , which will vastly amuse the
free traders ; but there is no fun in it
for those who are engaged in industries ,
which the president in former days had
assured them were absolutely dependent
upon tariff for existence. "
