Show I MXINLEY ARRAIGNED It is the fate of all presidents to be sere1y Fcored C Sine time or another an-other 1ther by their natural political enemIes or by their quondam political friends One of the latter has scored President McKinley scored him In away a-way that cannot fail to make him wince This former political frlend Is the Philadelphia American the article being written presumably by Wharton Whar-ton Barker Mr Barker plunges into the midst of things at the very outset Thus he says A president so weak as to vacillate with the ever changing presence of his numerous professing friends of diverse I views so weak as to change his course with the merest change of his surroundings I sur-roundings so weak as to suffer himself him-self to be guided by those who happen I to be nearest at hand or so unconscionable uncon-scionable as to play a double game with his own to say nothing of foreign for-eign peoples makes the sorriest and I for a selfrespecting people the most humiliating of spectacles And such a president do we find Mr McKinley Either he is so weak as to vacillate or so unconscionable as to play a double game We prefer to think him weak I to think of him as a man whose views I are moulded by the influences Immediately Immedi-ately surrounding him who shapes his course ever susceptible to change in accord with the latest pressure brought to bear upon him than to think him unconscionable It is a hard and regrettable re-grettable thing to say of a man ezalted to the highest place in the gift of the people but that he is either weak or unconscionable we are forced to admit ad-mit Consideration of his course in regard re-gard to the future fiscal policy of the country leaves us no other alterna tire tiveWe We refer not to his changable attitude atti-tude with regard to urging upon congress con-gress the appointment of a currency commission That is mere nothing The change from his undoubted purpose pur-pose to send a message to congress requesting re-questing authority for the appointment appoint-ment of a commission charged to formulate for-mulate a plan for the reform of our currency and his decision to withhold such message we are not quite certain cer-tain that this will remain his decision until we can get to press can be readily explained on the ground of advisability ad-visability from a political standpoint He had plenty of evidence to lead him to the belief that congress would not respond to such request and he may well have been decided to withhold a request by accumulating evidence that that request would not be granted It is true that the same consideration considera-tion namely that congress would not grant a request for the appointment of a currency commission should have weighed as strongly with the president when he prepared his currency message mes-sage as it did later when he decided to withhold it for at no time since the meeting of congress has there been evidence evi-dence that it would respond favorably Ito I-to the currency commission idea But as we have said such change of purpose pur-pose on the part of the president is a mere nothing for such change involves I no change of views involves nothing I more than a postponement with the belief that too much urging would retard I re-tard rather than promote the practical application of the views held by our currency monopolists True the most I pronounced and daring of our currency have not taken this monopolists postponement post-ponement in good part but it may be that they are too daring too pronounced pro-nounced for their own good and that the president serves them better by holding back than he could by responding re-sponding to their full wishes That it is in such belief that the president has acted as he has we do not profess to say but in such belief he may have acted and it is but just to grant him the credit of consistency where such I credit can be given But this is a minor part of the presidents pres-idents record in dealing with our currency I cur-rency system and the rest of his record convicts him of weakness or double I dealing His course has ben one of apparent ap-parent inconsistency It can only he explained as that of the weak man wanting in decision and incapable of fixidity of purpose or as that of the unconscionable man with a fixiditv of purpose that he dares not avow knowing know-ing that avowal would mean its defeat and that he seeks to hide behind an assumed indecision Thus we have seen the president send commissioners abroad with the avowed object of bringing about the reestablishment reestab-lishment of bimetallism At the same time the administration has been preparing pre-paring plans for reforming our currency system on a gold basis Thus we have I the president avowing his purpose to bring about bimetallism and at the same time seeking to establish gold monometallism on a permanent basis It is not good faith on the part of the president It is either the helpless indecision in-decision or vacillation of the weak manor man-or the purposeless and superficial indecision in-decision of the crafty man seeking to throw men off their guard to blind the American people as to his true intent That is a severe arraignment it could scarcely have been severer No one believes that President McKinley Mc-Kinley is an unconscionable man many do believe that he is a weak man In public life to be a weak man is quite as bad as to be a wicked man In the one case he will use the powers bestowed be-stowed upon him for his own ulterior purposes in the other he permits himself him-self to be used for the ulterior purposes of those whose tool he is A wicked man will have definite and well defined ways and ambitions all making against the intrest of the people A weak man may have ways equally as inimical to the interest of the people for no one can tell by what influences he will be swayed x > r when they will work upon himThe The president finally sent his currency cur-rency commission message to congress but it was treated with scant courtesy no other notice being taken of it than to refer It to a committee But there is a most potent conflict between this I message and the avowed purpose of the Wolcott commission It is not at all improbable that between the two stools I the president will fall Mr Barker concludes his indictment of the president in these terms Our president we repeat has permitted per-mitted the promulgation of a plan of currency reformation built avowedly upon the gold basis while sending a commission abroad to arrange for the reestablishment of a bimetallic basis I for the currencies of the world It is not keeping good faith either with his own people or foreign governments He professes his belief in bimetallism Bimetallism by international agreement agree-ment is within his reach but he lends the force of his administration not to promoting the consummation of that end but to the advancement of plans nominally for the remodelling of our currency on a gold basis but that must bring up In an irredeemable bank currency cur-rency If he sent his bimetallic commission abroad in good faith and now yielding to the pressure of the currency monopolists monop-olists who elected him cuts the ground from under the feet of those commissioners commis-sioners bending his efforts to remodel our currency on a gold basis rather than strengthen the hands of his commissioners com-missioners working for bimetallism he shows himself to be a weak man unworthy I un-worthy of the great place he occupies I and the trust imposed upon him If he I did not send his bimetallic commission abroad in good faith if he sent it to I distract attention from plans for the rebuilding re-building of our currency system on a I gold basis he shows himself as an unconscionable un-conscionable man playing a double game a game for the enrichment of a I class and the impoverishment of a I people and equally unworthy of the place he holds |