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Show A DISCONTENTED OPPOSITION. j Jl is amusing lo sec the varying J ''positions of the opposition in this campaign cam-paign to the words and the work of the American party. Tho American parly is damned for what it does, it is damned for what it does not, it ii? blamed for extravagance, it is blamed becauso it docs not spend, more money, it is blamed for ruining the city, and snarled at because it has brought more prosperity, more actual growth and a higher standard of progress and public pub-lic ethics than were ever known in this city before. Tho Herald, yesterday morning, occupied occu-pied both positions on this question. Its cartoon was meant for a loud complaint com-plaint against the American party because be-cause it did not do moro in tho way of public improvements, did not better heed tho popular demand for sidewalks, for sewers, and for general betterments. At tho same time, the Herald is busy in a pretended showing that the American Ameri-can party has spent so much money on public improvements that it has bankrupted bank-rupted the city. The incongruity of these two opposing positions docs not, seem to appeal to tho Herald, but it has an idea perhaps that it can catch tho voters "both coming and going." That Is, to thoso who arc opposed to public improvements it claims that the American Ameri-can party has done so much of this that it has overplayed the financial ability of the city. To those progressive people peo-ple who want public work done it pretends pre-tends to show that the American party is not keeping up with tho popular demand de-mand in doing public work. The Smoot "Mouth" is . not behind the Herald in occupying both of these positions with respect to the American parly; and neither is the "Mouth's" main inspiration and polq-horse, tho Doserct News. On tho ono hand, tho News bewails the tremendous expenditure expendi-ture of monoy for public improvements; aud hero the church organ is clearly in its element and occupies its true position, for it has always opposed public pub-lic improvements and has considered money wasted thai., is spent upon them. Far better, in its opinion, it is to pay whatever money can be raked and scraped in any walk of life, private or public, into the tithing fund. That is the News' 's choice receptacle for all possible monoy that can bo gathered togothcr. The News also joins, although in a minor key, the complaint that tho American parly is not doing cortaiu public work that the public asked to havo done. And the News has engaged in a fretful nagging (.hat I he others havo not done, in falsely undertaking to show that the work done by the Amorican party is bad both in material used and skill employed. It is not possible for the American party to meet the requirements of the carping critics, those who are howling against the American party at this time. No matter what it does, no matter mat-ter how well it does its work, thero aro thoso who find fault. If it does a lot of work tho complaint is thai it does too much, that il spends money too fast; and yet notwithstanding all that it has 'done, exceeding in tho two years of its incumbency in control of this city the twelve years previous combined, thcro is still a claim that it ought to do more. The American party is doing too much, it is not doing enough, it is spending too much money, it is not spending as much as it ought lo, its work is tho poorest ever done, its inspection in-spection of that work is the best ever had, it is careless and slipshod in its work, it does the best and most lasting and most finished work that any administration admin-istration has ever done. Aud there you have it. The American Ameri-can party is to blame for what it does and for what il does not. There is no pleasing tho opposition. And so the American party will just have to sail along without tho approval of that opposition, op-position, but to the vast approval and willing support of tho taxpayers of the city as well as of the laboring men who pay littlo or no taxes, but who have received substantial benefits from the American control in the large amount of work provided, affording them constant con-stant employment at an increased wage, which increase Iho opposition at. the time it was made fiercoly donouueod. On the whole, wo think that tho American Ameri-can party can get along in excellent stylo by doing just what it has beon doing, paying the laboror a wage that is a living wage, and doing tho best work that has ever boon done in tho city, and far and away the most of it. Fairbanks, tho other day, turned $280,000 into tho National treasury. But this has reference to a shipmont of gold from an Alaska town, and is intended to bo no intimation that our Vice-President has paid a fine for that cocktail affair. M. Boauliou, tho French politician, is said to have shot himself and blamed it to his enemies, in order to make political po-litical capital. In this land of the free they do. that kind of boosting on tho half-shot plan. By. Booth Tarkington, we learn, Boni de Castellane is called a "morally strabismic strab-ismic and 'financially decrepit titular .excrcsconccJ Npyt. for a duel cwitk- monocles, with an ocean between tho fiery combatants. |