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Show and it will bring Songs, Slogans, Symbols ad Siaoders I SLOGANS MAY BE SLANDERS, AND VICE-VERSA By ELMO SCOTT WATSON yV u-X ACK In 18S4 when James G. 1&Ps ' B'l'ne was the Republican Qf lj candidate for President and fCpT. Grover Cleveland, the Demo's) Demo-'s) if cratlc standard-bearer, the fol-Ji fol-Ji I M Jb n lowers of the latter raised the (C ' iV1! cry of "TurQ tlle rascals out!" S Despite the scandals of the 4 Grant administration and the i JLslf dubious victory of the Republican Repub-lican Hayes over the Democratic Demo-cratic Tilden, It Is doubtful If there were any more "rascals" In the Republican party than there were among the Democrats at that time. But American political history Is full of cases In which the "outs" raise that cry against the ,"ins" to unseat them. That was the case In 1SS4 and the Republicans were turned out after having hav-ing been In power continuously for 24 years. Again In 1928 the Democratic "outs," recalling the scandals of the Harding administration, raised that cry against the Republican "ins" but this time it didn't work and Hoover was elected over Smith. Now we are approaching another campaign and, ironically enough, the Democrats who are now the "ins" are hearing the familiar old cry raised against them by some of the leading lead-ing newspapers representing the Republican "outs." Yes, another campaign Is coming and, Just as In the past, we will now have our full quota of slogans and slanders I Especially, the latter, for both sides have already predicted that "it's going to be a very dirty campaign." What will those slanders be? Don't worry! You'll hear them soon enough trust Old Dame Rumor and her consort. Old Whispering Campaigner, for that I What will the slogans be? It's a little too early yet to predict that very accurately. But It looks now as though some variation of "Don't Bring Back the Horse and Buggy Days" might be used by the Democrats and "Save the Constitution" Con-stitution" by the Republicans. However, there may be entirely different and more potent ones after the nominating conventions are held In June and the campaign gets well under way. About the only predictable thing about the power pow-er of campaign slogans is their utter unpredictability. unpre-dictability. Often the carefully planned ones are failures at vote-getting, whereas a chance remark or some unexpected incident may provide pro-vide a slogan which plays a vitally important part In electing a candidate. At least, that has been their history in the past. In 1810 the Presidential candidate of the Whigs was William Henry Harrison, the hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe. When they nominated nom-inated as his running mate John Tyler of Virginia, the combination gave them "alliteration's "allitera-tion's artful aid." Shouting for "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too!" plus a few pointed remarks at the White House incumbent such as "Van, Van Is a Used-up Man" and "With Tip and Tyler, We'll Bust Van's Biler" the Whigs won an overwhelming over-whelming victory. Four years later slogans played a very decisive de-cisive part in electing' the first "dark horse" in American political history James K. Polk of Tennessee. At that time we were involved in disputes with Mexico over the proposed annexation annexa-tion of Texas and with Great Britain over the BORJT TO COMMAND. R -pttj ! pfAVJf JEINT? ANDREW TEE ITS ST. A Cartoon of 100 Years Ago Portraying President Presi-dent Andrew Jackson as a Despot Treading on the Constitution. Oregon country. So the Democrats raised the cry of "Polk und Texas; Clay and No Texas" and the more alliterative, "Fifty-four Forty or Fight I" and their candidate won. The war with Mexico and especially the battle bat-tle of Buena Vista produced another slogan which helped elect Gen. Zachary Taylor President Presi-dent in IS IS. It w:is Ills alleged remark of "A little more grape. Captain Brass I" which struck the popular fancy as being just what a great commander would say under the circumstances. In the same year was born a slogan which crystallized In popular phraseology the most fateful movement in American history. It was "Free Soil, Free Speech, Free Labor and Free Men" taken from a plank in the platform of the Free Soil party (formed by a coalition of the Liberty party, founded In 1SI0 by James G. ISIr-ney, ISIr-ney, and the "Barnburners," the anti-slavery wing of the Democratic party, led by Martin Van Buren). But it failed to win tor Van Buren, the Free Soli candidate, Just as It failed to win eight years later for Gen. John C. Fremont, Fre-mont, the candidate of the new Republican pnrty, when the slogan was changed to "Free Labor, Free Speech, Free Men, Free Kansas and FremonL" , Four years later, however, this "free" motif "THE IS I G G E R" 1 Pi r H E WOODPILE. A CARTOON OF THE 1860 CAMPAIGN The figure on the pile of rails is Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate saying: "Little "Lit-tle did I think when 1 split these rails that they would be the means of elevating me to my present position." In the center is Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune saying: "I assure you, my friend, that you can safely vote our ticket, for we have no connection with the Abolition party but our Platform is composed entirely of rails, split by our Candidate." To that the figure on the left, "Young America," is replying: "It's no use, old fellowl You can't pull the wool over my eyes for I can see 'the Nigger" peeping through the rails." did triumph In the stirring campaign of 1SG" when Abraham Lincoln was the Republican candidate. can-didate. Among the slogans of that campaign were "Millions for Freedom, Not One Cent for Slavery," "Intervention is Disunion," "Popular Sovereignty and National Union," "Free Homes for Free Men," ''The Constitution and the Union, Now and Forever," "Let Liberty Be National and Slavery Sectional," and scores of others, on both sides of the slavery controversy. Grant's famous "Let Us Have Peace" was used to good advantage as a slogan in electing the "Man from Appomattox" but the corruption which marked his two administrations provided the Democratic opponents of his successor, Hayes, with the best possible type of slogan. So "Tilden "Til-den and Reform" echoed throughout the campaign cam-paign in 1STG as a powerful rallying cry for the Democrats. By all the rules of slogan logic, the brevity and the force of that slogan should have won for Tilden but election boards and an electoral elec-toral commission decided otherwise. In the campaign of 1SS4 the Democrats had a winning slogan handed to them on a silver platter by their opponents. The Republican candidate was James G. Blaine and it looked as though his followers with their rallying cries of "Blaine, Blaine, Blaine of Maine" and "As Maine Goes, So Goes the Nation !" would elect him. But his cause received a fatal blow when a group of ministers called upon him and their leader, Rev. R. B. Burchard, declared in a speech that all conscientious Americans should vote the Republican ticket because the Democrats stood for "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." Elaine did not hear him distinctly enough to realize the gross error and to repudiate this slur upon the religious belief of millions of Americans. So the slogan which the Republicans had attempted to tack on the Democrats proved to be a boomerang and aided In defeating their candidate. The tariff campaigns were prolific with slogans. slo-gans. Among the most telling ones were "Protection "Pro-tection and Prosperity, "Free Trade and Pauperized Pauper-ized Labor" and "Free Trade and the Destruction Destruc-tion of American Industries," which the practical prac-tical Mark Hanna boiled down Into the vote-getting slogan of "The Full Dinner Pail." " Sometimes a slogan will have a "kick-back" after It has accomplished Its purpose. There is no doubt but that "He Kept Us Out of War" helped re-elect Woodrow Wilson In 1916. And then fate decreed that within six months after his election we should be "in" and not "out" of war. "Too Proud to Fight" was another phrase that haunted him later. As for the slogans of recent years, they are too familiar to most of us to need much comment. com-ment. War-weary America turned "Back to Normalcy" Nor-malcy" with Warren G. Harding in 1D20. In 1024 when the Democrats hoped that it was restless under Republican misrule and hot for a change, they learned that It had decided to "Keep Cool With Coolidge" Instead of vote for "Better Days With Davis." In 1D28 the Democrats, wearing a brown derby and singing "The Sidewalks of New York" asked America to remember Its "Eight Years of Wall Street" and to "Give Main Street a Chance." But Instead of heeding this advice America voted for "Hoover and Prosperity" and for "Safety, Solvency and Sobriety." When that prosperity vanished in 1029 it was willing to listen to a promise of a "New Deal" and in 1932 elected Franklin D. Roosevelt to get It And these are only a part of the slogans which have played their part lu American political history. his-tory. The slanders have been equally numerous. Slogans are often forgotten after "the tumult and the shouting" of a political campaign dies down. But, unfortunately, that Is not always true of tiie slanders. Even after a candidate becomes President of the United States and is traditionally tradition-ally entitled to all the respect and honor due that high ollice, the gossips, the whisperers, the Just-plain-liars keep up their dirty work. Few Presidential candidates and few Presidents have escaped being the targets of their poison tongues. "If ever a nation was debauched by n man, the American nation has been debauched by him. If ever a nation has been deceived by a man the American nation has been deceived by him. Let his conduct then be an example to future ages. Let it serve to be a warning that no man may be an Idol and that a people may confide In themselves rather than In an Individual. Individ-ual. Let the history of the federal government instruct mankind, that the masque of patriotism may be worn to conceal the foulest designs against the liberties of the people." The man referred to In the foregoing quotation quota-tion was none other than George Washington. Those lines were penned by Benjamin Franklin Baehe, grandson of the immortal Ben Franklin, editor of the Philadelphia Aurora In 179G. And that was typical of the abuse heaped upon the head of the "Father of His Country" by the Jef-fersonlan Jef-fersonlan Republican press during the final months of Washington's last administration. With such a good start, is it especially remarkable remark-able that our political history should be filled with slanders and that In the heat of a Presidential Presi-dential campaign common sense and common decency seems sunk to unbelievably low depths? "Bargain and Corruption !" was the cry of the Jacksonian Democrats against John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay In 1S24 for, as a popular song of that period declared: Henry Clay was a cunning chap His debts had thrown him all aback. So he felt a longing for Treasury pap. He made a bargain with John the Great, I shan't the particulars here relate, But Harry was placed in the chair of State, Heigh-ho, says Harry. But such a charge as that was mild compared to those hurled during the campaign of 1S28 when Jackson triumphed over Adams. "It was a merciless, filthy, scavenging campaign, In which nothing personal concerning the candidates candi-dates was denied to the accumulating spoils of published privacies from the temporary legal complications of General Jackson's matrimonial affairs to the. billiard table, that piece of 'gambling 'gam-bling furniture' at the White House" (then occupied occu-pied by Adams). So writes Meade MInnigerode in his book "Presidential Years." Considering the veneration in which the name of Abraham Lincoln Is held throughout the United States today, it seems strange to look through the newspapers of 1SG0 and find in them a reference to him In such words as these: "A horrid looking wretch he Is, sooty and scoundrelly scoun-drelly in aspect, a cross between the nutmeg dealer, the horse swapper and the night man . . . He Is a lanksided Yankee of the nncomellest visage and of the dirtiest complexion. Faugh ! After him what decent white men would be President?" After Lincoln's assassination, the scandalmongers scandal-mongers Immediately busied themselves with smearing the new President, Andrew Johnson. He had, they asserted, "been drinking for a month" and on the night of that tragedy "had to be roused from a drunken stupor and taken to a doctor to be sobered up." Both Grant and Cleveland were accused of habitual Intemperance Intemper-ance and an alleged Indiscretion in the latter's youth was exaggerated and distorted to make him appear an habitual profligate. Cleveland's opponent, Blaine, did nothing to stop the spread of this scandal but when Cleveland Cleve-land was offered certain papers which would besmirch Blaine in much the same manner, he paid off the tale-bearer and destroyed the papers. pa-pers. However, a less scrupulous Democratic partisan got hold of the story, which reflected j upon Blaine's family life, and published it It became common campaign gossip and, despite a frank explanation which Blaine was at last forced to issue, the slander continued to circulate. circu-late. And this was only one of several incidents in the campaign of 1SS4 which was as bad, If not worse, than the Jackson-Adams campaign of 1S2S. At one time Cleveland while discussing with John S. Wise, a political opponent but a personal I friend, the death of I'resident McKlnley, said: "I don't know whether, after all, McKinley's life, ! sad as was its ending, was not, taking into consideration con-sideration everything, to be envied. It Is true lie was struck down by an assassin. But he was never 'assassinated' In his lifetime. Bodily death Is by no means the worst torture which a man can suffer. The torture of lies and misrepresentation misrepre-sentation affecting what is dearest to us in life is infinitely worse than the mere physical pain of dying." No doubt other Presidents and other Presidential Presiden-tial candidates who have suffered as he did would agree with those words of Grover Cleveland. Cleve-land. Aud American citizens might well remember remem-ber them when, during the coming campaign, some whisperer seeks tn pour in his ear lie poison of slander ncninst a candidate, wheiher Republican or Democrat, Socialist or Cumniu- : nist, or the s.t ndard-hoaror of any nthiT par;y. j 6 Western Newspaper Ur.ica. . i |