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k
12 'Cbe Conservative.
ROSSINGTON EXPLAINS.
the KeatllrmliiK of the Chicago
Platform and thv Leadership of a
Soldier of Fortune.
Colonel W.H. Eossingtou , the head of
one of the leading law firms of Topeka ,
formerly editor of the Topeka Common
wealth , and a life-long democrat , has
openly announced his purpose of voting
with the republicans until the demo
cratic party returns to former principles.
In explaining his position Mr. Rossiug-
ton said to a reporter of the Kansas City
Star :
"I am sick and tired of the thing they
call 'democracy' in Kansas. I have had
the honor to be connected in a small
way with two earnest movements in
this state to defeat fusion and bring the
democratic party back to its moorings.
I always have been a democrat from
conviction and not for spoils , and never
have held or wanted an office of any
sort. I had hoped and believed that
with the defeat of the fusion combina"-
tiou in 1898 the men calling themselves
democrats would be cured and that they
would do what many of them said they
would , namely , reorganize the demo
cratic party along the old lines and
invite the democrats of the original type
back to the fold. There are a great
11 many of that stripe left in Kansas seeking
jpjAj
$ ing a home.
* m
rsj Will Endorse a Populist.
"So far from an effort being made to
reorganize the party this degrading and
dishonorable principle of fusion is to be
applied to the whole country again it
seems , and the democracy in convention
/
at Kansas City on the Fourth of July is
to accept and indorse the candidate who
will be nominated by the populist con
vention at Sioux City nearly two months
earlier. This scheme is what it always
has been , an utterly graceless and un
principled device to get votes. I have
1 become tired of being disfranchised in
the state of Kansas by being compelled
to vote for a populist , or not to vote at all ,
nud therefore I have concluded to cast
my lot with the republican party until
such time , if ever , as the democratic
l
; party becomes a party of reason , of
principle and of honest public purposes.
Proud of Party History.
"There was a time in this country
when all democrats were proud of the
leadership of the party. It was the
party of conservatism , the party of re
form , the party of single and honest
methods of government. It originally
was conceived in the purpose and desire
to bring and keep the government on
the lines devised by the great and good
men who founded it. It naturally
allied to itself all the strong , cultured
nud able men of the country luring
conservative views of government. In
an unlucky moment for the party , how
ever , it was called upon to carry on and
bo responsible for conditions resulting
from a world wide panic. Conditions
which had been produced by unwise
financial legislation , a heritage of the
civil war , required a dealing with the
question of the currency. Merely re
ferring to and without reviewing this
controversy , now happily by the vote of
1896 , dead , the convention of the party
in that year deliberately deposed every
leader of ability and conscience the
party possessed , and in a moment of
frenzy and recklessness adopted a plat
form and named a candidate for presi
dent that they have not been able to get
rid of since. The platform was written
by Altgeld , a German socialist. The
candidate , Mr. Bryan , was the choice of
a maddened and excited body of men ,
moved by a frantic and preposterous
speech made for the purpose of stam
peding the convention in his favor.
JJrynn'H Undignified Course.
4 'He since has made an absurd and
humiliating spectacle of himself by
racing over the country and making
speeches in behalf of his own renomi-
nation for the presidency. This greatest
office and honor in the world never
before has been sought in this fashion.
As has been justly said of it by one of
the greatest Americans , it is a position
neither to be sought nor refused. It is
unthinkable that a mere soldier of for
tune , devoid of principle , without con
viction , changing his views upon every
subject with every phase of the moon ,
constantly appealing to the passions and
prejudices of the people , playing the
demagogue at every opportunity and on
every occasion , should be made presi
dent of this great republic. He has
announced his purpose to impose him
self upon the democratic party of the
country again and also to force down
the throats of honest and courageous
men , older and wiser than he , who were
democrats before he was out of his
swaddling clothes , a reaffirming of that
compound of folly and treason , the
Chicago platform. Being satisfied that
this program is inevitable , I , for one
democrat , have made up my mind to
rebel. "
HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF.
Bryanarchy In Greece.
In his "Greek Life and Thought" Ma-
haffy describes conditions identical with
those now prevailing in the United
States and having the Honorable Wil
liam Jennings Bryan , "the boy orator of
the Platte , " as their chief advocate.
Mahaffy says :
"But there were far lower classes in
society , if not in morals , than those
people whom we might call the gentry
of Athens , " ( camparable to our cap-
taiiiB of industry.
"There were 'for larger masses in all
the Greek towns , more prominent and
\l
therefore more easily judged. I do not
speak of the parasites , another very
small class whioh gained notoriety from
the stage of Epicharmns rather than
from real life , and so was copied for
stage purposes till we have got to believe
that parasites were as plenty as mendi
cants are now.
"The real parasiteB of Athens were
not the few miserable starvelings , but
the mob of Athens , the men of free ,
poor citizens who had been taught by
demagogues and by pretended patriots
to depend not on their own industry
but on their politics for bread. They
were taught the doctrine , not yet ex
tinct , that the only way to make a poor
people prosperous is by autonomy , bydriv-
ing out all foreign influencesby prohibit
ing foreign competition and by letting
people manage their own affairs.
"As every pauper then had a vote , we
might well expect to find that the use
, , , , , made of home-rule
T T r *
Rob Rich for Benefit , ,
. was no * ° extend
of Poor.
manufacture or
trade , not to reward diligence and thrift ,
but to plunder the rich for the benefit of
the idle poor. Just as the tyrants of old
had exiled , confiscated and murdered to
obtain wealth , so the democrats exiled ,
confiscated and murdered to enrich
themselves. But , finding , as is always
the case , that riches so acquired have
wings and fly away , they became the
parasites of any foreign potentate who
chose to subsidize them. They decreed
divine honors to the man who sent them
corn , and BO we have the curious spec
tacle of men struggling incessantly for
home rule and yet grovelling in the dutit
before foreign rulers. The fact was
that every time they got their senti
mental panacea they found it an illusion
and a snare. They could not be per
suaded that their poverty and decadence
was their own fault , but were ready
to proclaim any other cause as the source
of their ills. So they were led to be
lieve that some external influence ,
foreign to their own thrift and charac
ter , would restore them to prosperity.
According to a now common formula it
would bring money into the country.
But we have yet to learn that there is a
political alchemy whioh will create gold
from dross and transform , by legislation ,
the idle , the frivolous and the dishonest ,
into a prosperous and contented nation.
"There were two important contribn-
tary causes which helped to do this
social mischief. In the first place the
Greek nation had always been , and was
then , a nation of talkers ( how about
U. S. ? ) who delighted in eloquence , and
in the putting of things forcibly and
plausibly. It is a great mistake to think
that this fatal fluency acts only on the
ignorant crowd. The speakers , them
selves , come to be carried away as much
as their audiences , ( Bryan ) and from
long posing as patriots and friends of the
common people , gradually persuade
i
HCK
