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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (July 5, 1900)
* ' fc * ! ' The Conservative * doubt , fall upon the people of our own country. Such a policy would not only bo opposed to our own self-interest , but would bo antagonistic to the best inter ests of Ohinu. To us it would mean the abandonment of the fundamental prin ciple of our form of government , viz. , local self-government. It would moan a combination of conflicting and ir reconcilable ideas of government a re public at homo , a despotism abroad. Shall wo depart from those paths , that have proven safe , that have contributed so much to our national greatness ? Or shall wo cling to the safe and sure foun dations of the republic and abandon our dreams of empire and despotism ? This view is in accord with the Eng lish idea of our responsibilities should _ . . . . wo once interfere Brit lull View. . _ , . . , . m a. in China. The St. James Gazette in commenting upon the lessons wo are now learning from China says : "China is teaching America the im possibility of a great trading nation avoiding imperialism. America's ex perience will teach her it is not the de sire to grab distant lauds , but unavoid able destiny , that drives great Britain ever forward. Washington has no choice but to protect imperiled Ameri can citizens , and having once interfered in China to protect her interests , she shall never be able to shake from her shoes the dust of the Celestial Empire. " . The St. James Gazette advances the same reasons for our remaining in China that were presented in favor of the extension of our power over the Philip pines. If this argument was of suffi cient weight to determine the policy oi the present administration in dealing with the Philippines would it not be equally effective with some future ad ministration whoii applied to China especially since the Philippines can be cited as a precedent ? Unless we wish to place ourselves in a position where we will "never be able to shake from our shoes the dust of the Celestial Em pire" we had better act upon the sage advice given by Polouius to Laertes "Beware of the entrance to a quarrel. ' While from our standpoint China has not kept pace in the onward march o : Society ait Organism. civilization . . , , while her in dustriol life is crude and primitive , ye this cannot be urged as a justification for war. These things cannot be chaugec in a day. Society is an organism. I grows naturally , not phenomenally. Na tura non lqsus applies with peculia force to the organism we call a state As the child cannot , presto change , be a man , so China cannot in a moment be evolved into the highest type of uatioua life. China is the most densely popu lated portion of the globe. Her iudus trial system sustains more people pe square mile than does that of any othe country. The slow process of hand labor enables all of her people to be em _ r ployed. A revolution in her industrial ifo such as the immediate displacement ihroughout the empire , of hand labor ) y modern machinery , would throw millions out of employment and deprive hem of the moans of livelihood. They would bo forced to steal or starv o. The country would bo overrun with hungry lordos of idle men. A greater calamity could not befall China than the sudden iransition from the old to the now , as is agitated by ultraprogrossivo people. A change in industrial life , in order to bo effective aud beneficial , ought to bo gradual , thereby giving the people am- ) le opportunity to adjust themselves to iho now conditions. China will make greater progress industrially and assume more rapidly the ways of modern civil ization if loft to work out her destiny n her own way , as Japan has already done , and we will bettor fulfill our dos- ; iny aud more nearly approach the ideal of a republic , by confining our activities bo present boundaries and avoiding en tanglements in the Orient. The main. . tivo conscience of Mr. Bryan forced him , in 1893 , to con demn the "gold standard" and to say of the democratic party in Nebraska , which at that time stood for the gold standard : "Gentlemen , I know not what others may do , but duty to country is above duty to party. * * * If the democratic party , after you go homo , endorses your action and makes your position its per manent policy , I promise you that I will go out and serve my country and my God under some other name , even if I must go alone. " And speedily after this swashbuckler bravado , the same citizen declares all those who think of the silver standard as he pretends to think of the gold , and of all those who "place duty to country above duty to party , " when the party seeks to debase the currency and the morals of the republic by 1C to 1 , to be "conspirators , " "traitors upon whom the brand shall be placed and they shall not comeback. " The conscience and ambition of Mr Bryan were set up as the only couscience and the only ambition for democracy to heed. Under the rulings of that con science and the inspirations of thai ambition democracy has been merged into and lost in the vagaries of popu lism. And after four years of this fanaticism the same man and the same vagaries in finance are again forced to the front. If it were impossible during hard times and low prices to push them to victory , how shall they be made to triumph now ? Will the support of Tammany , Croker , the New York City ice trust and the silver conspirators be able to buy the election for Bryan ? And if it is right for those elements to support him how can it be wrong for decent business men everywhere to oppose him ? Why did not Mr. AN OVEUSIG11T , Bryan see that the Chicago platform was brought up to date and made to apply in every par ticular to the now conditions that have arisen since 1890 ? Ho should have insisted that the plank condemning federal interference with the Chicago rioters , bo supplemented with a declara tion endorsing the action of St. Louis strikers in denuding lady passengers of the street cars. He would thus have placed himself in complete accord with this new form of anarchistic demon stration and would have made impossible the displacement of his leadership. His neglect is unpardonable. T h e F r e m o u t THE 1IK\'AN VOTE. Herald challenges the statement that appeared in THE CONSERVATIVE that Mr. Bryan was a weaker candidate for the democrats than Grooloy. TIIE CONSERVATIVE can easily demonstrate that this assertion is correct. In 1892 Mr. Cleveland received 5,550,928 votes or 40.09 per cent of the popular vote. Mr. Weaver the populist candidate received 1,041,011 , or 8.08 per cent. The combined vote regis tered against the republican candidate was 54.72 per cent. The combined vote , however , is not the proper test of the democratic party strength. The only way to determine the relative strength of the candidate is by a comparison of the strict party vote. Applying this test to Mr. Bryan and assuming the populist vote of 1890 to be that of 1892 , his party vote may be obtained by taking from the total vote the 1,041,011 populist votes , leaving 5,401,914 as the demo cratic vote for Mr. Bryan. It was but 89.22 per cent of the popular vote. The democratic vote for Mr. Bryan was 95,014 less than the democratic vote for Mr. Cleveland in 1892 , notwithstanding there were in 1890 1,808,150 new votes. Owing to the agitation of the slavery question in 1800 the democratic party was divided upon sectional lines. The democratic vote , however , opposed to the republicans that year , was 00.92 per cent of the popular vote , or 14.22 per cent more than the combined demo cratic , silver republican and populist vote against the republicans in 1890. The democratic vote polled by Greeley in 1872 was 44.21 per cent of the popular vote. The democratic vote for Cleve land in 1892 was 40.09 per cent. The democratic vote for Mr. Bryan in 1890 was but 89.22 per cent. ' THE CONSERVA TIVE can see no reason for retracting the statement that Mr. Bryan was the weakest man ever nominated by the democratic party. The vote in 1890 shows that a political party , by abandoning its party prin ciples , loses more of its party vote than it gains from the party to which it caters. The democratic party need not hope to succeed this year by again clothing itself in the livery of populism.