OCR Text |
Show V I I POLITICAL MELANGE BS So far the "American" party lias B had a monoply on campaign cntlnis- Hl iasm that is if the reports in the or- H gans of that aggregation of malcon- Hf tents arc to believed. They have Hf about completed their canvass of the jjH city and give out with apparently Hk the utmost confidence that the "Amen jjHJ can" party has more votes than the SB republicans and democrats combined. ta5 The "Americans" are pre-eminently jjH the party of brag and bluster. HJ The republicans and democrats each jH opened headquarters this week, the RIB former in the Commercial National IH Bank building and the latter in the I Windsor hotel, 225 South Main St., B'l and arc just starting in on the real 1 work of the campaign. Km The "Americans" have lost a great tJm many of those who voted with them mu last fall. There are people who have Bf had their eyes opened to the grafting ftl propensities of the party. They won't Wk stand for the system of robbing stran- wfr gers inaugurated by the police back- Bf cd and encouraged by the Tribune K and the leaders of the party. The McWhirter $10,000 robbery and many I smaller ones is too raw a proceeding I The system of robbing prisoners in the city jail which has been in vogue ' since the present administration has been in power is a disgrace to any city. The place is infested by a gang 6 Jp- of petty-fogging attorneys who are in league with the officers. They get whatever money the prisoner may have under the pretense of defending them in court and divide the spoils with the officers. I Property owners and tax payers are becoming aware of the extent to which the city treasury has been dc- ", pleted by graft, thieving and wastcful- f ness. They know that taxes have twice been raised by the "American" party and they know that if the party i . is continued in power the same policy I " will be pursued for another two years. They are afraid of the "American" party and with good reason. Among f these classes there are many defec- ' tions from the "Americans. On the other hand a good many new voters who have not been in the I city very long will undoubtedly vote the "American" ticket, because 'hey have been deceived. It is however very doubtful if the new vote will make up for the defections among the old one. It looks as if the "Americans" "Ameri-cans" will find it very difficult to maintain their vote of last year. They realize that and arc in reality basing their hopes of success on the hope that the republicans and democrats will keep far apart. If they do that there is little doubt but that the "Americans" will carry the election. For the welfare of the people it is absolutely essential that this party of graft be relegated to oblivion. If that is to be accomplished it must be a concentration of the opposition op-position on cither the republicans or democratic tickets. Division means defeat. The question for the patriotic patrio-tic voter who wants to defeat the "Americans" to decide is whether the republican 'or the democratic ticket is the move available for that purpose. pur-pose. Two years ago the conditions were very similar to what they are now. A large number of voters thought they could beat the "Americans" "Ameri-cans" with the democrats. They tried it and failed. The logic of the situation situa-tion then as now was to defeat the "Americans" with the republicans. There are three republicans in the city to one democrat. There is no reason why the one should yield to the three. From a business standpoint stand-point the republicans have a better ticket than the democrats. Thcr; arc not enough democrats in the citv to elect a single man on the ticket, not even a councilman. It's idle, to talk about beating the "Americans" with the democrats. The most they can do in a futile attempt to elect Morris Mor-ris would be to so weaken the republicans re-publicans that Mie "Americans" would win. A prominent republican here is in receipt of a postal from the East whooping it up for Secretary Taft as the Presidential candidate next year. This does but add a little more evidence evid-ence to what was previously at hand to the effect that the Taft bureau is activcl. ind intelligently at work. But for the fact that the man is wor thy of the work there might be an objection placed because of the car-lincss, car-lincss, not to say precipitancy, of the movement; but as Taft is a man we can all afford to vote for with the utmost cheerfulness, let it move along and gather as much head as may be thus far ahead. Of course this all presupposes the proposition that Roosevelt by his own act is out of the running, and that is not at all conceded; con-ceded; that he means what he says is of course, but he is too sensible to stand in the way when he realizes that an avalanche is coming and it is wiser to go with than against it. This country is very fortunate indeed in-deed in having such a man as Roosevelt Roose-velt to be at its head. He is a typical typi-cal American, a man who fits so exactly ex-actly into the position in which the people have placed him that the talk of anyone else just now has a jarring effect upon a good many people's sense of propriety. No other president presi-dent has done so many things with out the sustaining influence of a precedent pre-cedent to rely on, and none other who permitted his self-reliance to crop out in the form of original demonstration ever succeeded in such a marked degree. de-gree. It was an unwritten law that the chief magistrate must not cross the borders of the country during his term of office, no matter how imperative the call to do so might be; hut it was not a written law and therefore, there-fore, when the occasion arose requiring requir-ing that it be ignored, it was ignored and the monumental Panama scheme in which the nation is vitally concerned concern-ed received a personal visitation and minute inspection from the head of the nation. Those who were disposed dis-posed to censure the act have in gicat measure got to praising it, as well they might Wha man or combination combina-tion of men but would feel gratified at the act of a servant in going out of his way to perform a most timely service of much more consequence to them than to him inmvidually, especially espec-ially when criticism running all the way from silly to able and annoying to malicious had to be encountered and overcome? Just now the president is engaged in what seems to be a favorite pursuit, pur-suit, of mingling a good deal of real and useful public business with :omc measure of personal and temporary recreation. While kil! ' in incidental incident-al bear or deer he is no "oubt weirh- iBBJ ing the proposition of saying sonic- BBJ thing to congress about again utiliz- 'HH ing our immense waterways for com- 4HH mcrcial traffic and simplifying in some HH measure the vexed question of inter- ' state transportation. One thing is I BH certain: The forthcoming annual H message of the president is sure to BH contain sonic suggestions that the BH rest of us have not yet thought or, 1 H hut having read will wonder how it I BH was we didn't think of them. ' H There is but one Roosevelt, though H there arc lots of good, safe, capable H 1 HB |