| OCR Text |
Show B CAMPAIGN JOKES. B To those who have memories, the speech made B by ex-Postmaster General Vilas at the Jeffersonlan B banquet of the Iroquois club reads like a story B in a comic almanac. The burden of it was a plea B for a return to the simplicity and economy of the B good old Democratic days. Mr. Cleveland was B llrst elected on that same cry that and the as- B sumption that could the Democracy but once get B control the corruption they would unearth and ex- B pose on the part of their Republican predecessors B would astound the nation. When they succeeded B alas they found no corruption and they added new B offices (for the horde was awfully hungry), and B increased expenses until the country was glad to B shake off the crowd at the first opportunity. A B Republican senate held the country reasonably steady during the first term, but when on new, false cries Mr. Cleveland was a second time elected, both houses of congress were likewise Democratic and then the country got such a taste I of modern Democracy that it has never since re- peated the experiment. But it was of Mr. Vilas' B economy that we desired to say a few words. He Tvas postmaster general. When his term had about expired he made the boast that he had saved ?300,000 to the government by giving for- elgn ships the contracts for carrying the Amerl- can mails to Europe. The subsidized ships of Great B Britain and Germany were willing to carry the American mails for almost nothing if thereby they I could avoid the competition of American ships, B for thereby the carrying on the sea of what the "United States had to sell and what her merchants imported from ahroad fell to them and the Ameri- can ocean carrying, except betwen home ports, I "was naught. Further Mr. Vilas sent the Ameri- can malls to the West Indies in fishing smacks and when the Pacific Mail Steamship company declined to carry the mails to Central America at the prices Mr. Vilas offered he actually sent B a request to a gentleman whom he knew was B going to Central America "that he take the mails B an personal baggage. What more natural then B that as another Presidential campaign is coming B op he should lift up his voice for economy? It B was so much better when he and Hoke Smith I were running things. If Mr. Vilas was in our city council he would vote with Fernstrom every time; were Mr. Fernstrom postmaster general he would be a second Vilas." "We say this without disrespect dis-respect to Mr. Vilas nor to Mr. Fernston. By the way, Mr. Bryan sprung a joke on that Iroquois banquet when in his letten he urged Democratic ascendency that supreme judges in sympathy with the masses might be appointed, refering particularly to the merger decision. Was he not aware that the justices who dissented from that merger decision were every one Democrats? |
