A Bare Hook

There seems to be an effort making among the republican managers in various quarters, in view of the existing unrest among workingmen, to induce them to leave both old parties and cast their fortunes with the populists. But the workingmen of the country are too wary to be caught on such a hook as they will readily understand that there is a good sized African hidden in the apparently disinterested advice. On closer inspection the republicans are not as disinterested in this matter as they would seem. The republican party has always been the party of plutocracy, and during the thirty years of its ascendancy, by its discriminating legislation it laid the foundation for much of the distress under which the country is staggering today. The workingmen had arrived at a realizing sense of this fact in 1890, when they so generally deserted the g. o. p., and two years later they were more pronounced than before in their opposition. Republican managers understand perfectly, therefore, that they cannot expect workingmen to again support republicanism to any considerable- extent, and they hope to weaken the vote for democracy by urging them to cast their fortunes with the new party. Such a course as this would aid in returning the discredited republican party to power in the nation and fasten upon the country for another term of years the self-same abuses which the workingmen repudiated with their ballots in 1S90 and 1892. That labor can thus be deceived into voting in the interest of a party that has never represented its highest good or cared to understand its aspirations, no one believes. The democratie party is today as it always has been the best friend of labor among the politlcal organizations, and the highest interests of 1 labor will be best subserved by continuing the democracy in power. It is true that democratie control at Washington has not,to date,accomplished all that was expected of it, but this is due to the desertion of the people's cause by a few leaders in a body so evenly divided as to allow a few traitors to retard remedial legislation. But this does not signify any treachery on the part of the party itself toward its promises and the obligations placed upon it by the people. The party is still loyal to the principies which it enunciated in '92 as is shown by their reiteration in every state platform this year. These reforms are not discarded, but only deferred by the treachery of a few supposed servants of the people. Surely they will not be broueht about by returning the republicans to power. There is no valid reason, therefore, why any voter, be he workingman or other, who from principie cast his ballot for democracy should do otherwise this fall. No great reform was ever carried to a successful issue without encountering opposition and treachery where it was least expected, but these difficulties only delay their consummation. No voter should allow his mental visión to be beclouded as to the real faets of the situation.