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Show I Presidential Campaigns Remembered By A Printer 1888-1892 I I By LcROY ARMSTRONG THEYsfrj; th- ' when gooll peoplq die thoy r to Italy. When printers get too good for bour H geolse type and a weekly paper, they H go to Chicago. And I was there in H the campaign of 1888. The fast man H in the job alley said those figures re H minded him of three stout women H convoyed by a little thin man H If ever I had a lesson in the beau- H ties of disorganization, it was in that 1 campaign. Every Democrat had hi3 m own idea of how Cleveland should H have run his office. They hadn't had H a chance to taste pie for so long that H tho crust may have beon soggy; but H thoy wanted it. And no two of tjliem H wnnted it the same way. Over five H million Democrats voted for Cleve- Hj land In 1884, andwith the exception M of the few appointed to office, there H were at least four million national IB programs that he had not properly carried out. Every United States fl marshal he appointed made twenty Hfl candidates sore. And there were as H many violently disgruntled Democrats B aa there were citizens "patronizing" Hi the postofflce, as soon as the postmas- H ter's commission was published. H So that when I got down to the j train on the morning after election H and bought a paper, there was the B statement: "Harrison is Elected," H just filling the line. And the funny M thing about it i3 that every one B Democrats and Republicans, seemed B equally pleased over the result. B For the disgruntled Democrats M couldn't get over their grouch be- Kj cause ho had not "recognized" them, B or because he had appointed some m lukewarm Bourbon or some 'liberal" M Republican to office. They had won B tho Presidency on the most ethical of B campaigns. They had demanded civil B service reform, and when Cleveland Bb took them at their word, and didn't B empty the offices within the first six fl months, they began to swear at him. fl And they kept it up to the extont of B refusing to vote for him four years 9 later or they made the punishment B positive by voting for Harrison. B They had demanded a reform of the B tariff, and when Cleveland lent his B mighty energies to an accomplishment B of that miracle, they handicapped him B everywhere. They had pointed the j finger of scorn at tho bad character B of some men strong in the councils B or high in the offices of the Ropubli- B can party, and yet when they had a B chance to elevate 'politics, they cer- B tainly put forward for appointment B some of the choice and master B scamps of any ago. And thoy raved B like Jeff Davis of Arkansas when B Cleveland asked them to withdraw Bfl their recommendations before some BB one published the record of their pro- B teges. B Cleveland didn't get far in his first B term. But he did impress the country B that he was square, and strong, and Hh brave, and able. And he was the first B man his party had elected since 185G. B So that, all t ough Harrison's ono term the Cleveland sentiment grew stronger. Poor Harrison was not what might bo called a magnetic man. He was the coolest person that ever lived on the banks of the Potomac. And thousands of Republicans took a loaf from the Democratic book, and damned him with praise that was far form faint. So that as the election of 1892 came nearer, Cleveland stock had risen again. The Democrats had learned their lesson. If they wanted their party to succeed at all, they would have to realize the fact that it was a party, and not an individual. It was made up of some millions of men, and one of them had as good a right a3 any other to dictate policies. pol-icies. I had broken into newspaper work the year after Harrison's election, and was thought to be doing pretty well on the old Herald. One time in about 1891 Mr. Seymour, the managing manag-ing editor, sent me up through Wisconsin Wis-consin and Iowa to get as intimate an expression as possible of the political politi-cal situation in those rather important import-ant states. And when I came back and told him that the Democrats were loved by everyone of them. But even with the handicap of that pull in opposing directions, the Democrats rounded into the stretch neck and neck with the party in power. And they dropped everything, and came strong. They didn't care a whoop whether he had appointed them or not. They quite ignored what he Aad said of some of their candidates. They admitted they might have been wrong in condemning some of his policies. They were for Cleveland. I don'', know how it was down in the country. I think everyone should be born on a farm, and grow up in or near a town of no more than two thousand. You can't know much of politics in a city. And the bigger it is, the less you see of the show. So that, when Cleveland won, the event lapped its way into the past as gently as his first election had been noisy. Republicans had found by experience that a Democratic administration didn't mean chaos and old night, and there was les3 of the open-mouthed wonder, and more of large-souled acceptance ac-ceptance of results. Which brings us to the first Bryan "I take the stand that there were 72 delegates in that convention who were not entitled to seats. In voting to unseat un-seat them, I do not believe that I violated the pledge of the Republican convention at Provo. The delegates to the national na-tional convention were pledged to use every honorable means to nominate President Taft. If stealing is honorable, then I violated the trust and confidence of the Republican party in voting against these delegates. These delegates were Roosevelt Roose-velt delegates, and the leaders of the Republican party needed them to nominate Taft and they were seated." Statement by Colonel C. E. Loose of Utah. strong for the nomination of Cleveland Cleve-land again, he said: "They will have to kill off Cleveland, or he will kill the Democratic iparty." They didn't kill off Cleveland, but' you will please observe they haven't had another Democratic President since. That pretty nearly amounts to killing off a party. It is twenty long years since they didn't "kill off Cleveland." Cleve-land." Through the year 1891 the Democrats, Demo-crats, clearly profiting by their squabbles squab-bles in the first Cleveland administration, adminis-tration, repented themselves, and got together. Men who had put in four years saying harder thing3 of "the fat man" than we Republicans ever had thought of saying, came to defending him when attacked, and even of going go-ing out of their way to initiate argument argu-ment in his favor. And as the campaign cam-paign year warmed up, they seemed as solid in their formation as they wore In 1884. In Illinois they were strong enough to make John P Altgeld their candidate candi-date for governor, and if evar there were two men standing at the opposing oppos-ing poles of political sphere, it was Cleveland and Altgeld. The Ullnoi3 man was not an anarchiat but he was B0KHflHWr aHHBBHBHiHI campaign and that will be an excellent excel-lent place to stop. |