Great Opportunity

The [Detroit Evening News' leader is. For almost the first time In the history of 'Michigan, state Issues are to be at the fore in a carnpaign for the election of a state administration. Alone and of itself this is an enormous gain for a commonwealth whose government for ruany years has been nothing more than an adjunct to the machine of a United States senator, and whose officers have been elected on the tariff issue, the money issue and every other issue that had no possible or remotest connection with the question of honest and intelligent administration of the government at Lansing. Undoubtedly the republican bosses will make every effort to divert attention from the issues whieh the democratie platform has raised and to distract the popular mind with national matters; but the democracy has a candidate fully in sympathy with the platform adopted and the purpose it represents, and the lessons of niisrule will be driven home with a will from now until November. The republicans will 'be foreed to reply, and overy effort that they may make to explain or defend their position must necessarily involve them in worse confusión. But the platform places the enemy on the defensive, the nominee for governor puts them to rout. It will be a bold and audacious republican spellbinder who will dare institute comparison between Aaron T. Bliss and George H. Durand. To make the suggestion before an audience would be to invite contempt for his candidate. In the flrst place, Judge Durand is not a politician. He has no personal ambitions for which he would sully his own honor op corrupt that of the meanest voter in the state. His idea of office is service, a duty to his neighbors and fellow-citizens who constitute the state, and who, as 'he said in an interview a short time ago, are all partners in the public business. His simple and regretful depreeation of the use of money in politics, the purclmse of honors, the coiTiipting of the youth soon to be citizens differentiates him, at once, from a man capable of Jotning in sucli a dlsgrsceful scramble for political preferment as that in which his opponent first 'landed the prize that lie has pursued so long and so nrdently, and to gain which he was willing to make such shameful concessions to hurtful influences in our public life. It is the difference between the man who seeks the office with feverish and unscrupulous desire, and the man who is dragged from congenial retirement by the urgent and insistent demands of a people deeply stirred by the indignities put upon their state, and believing liim fltted to right their wrongs and restore to them a government conducted in the public interest. In opening the convention that nominated Judge Durand, Alfred Lucking declared that the assembly was charged with high responsibilities in a people's campaign against bad government. Both candidate and platform are an earnest that these responsibilities were soberly and nnderstandingly assumed, and that an invitation has been issued by 'Michigan democracy to men of all parties who recognize and deplore existing cond'itions dn the state to join in driving the money-changers out of the temple, restoring justice and honor to their appointed niches in the state capítol and recreating popular sovoreignty in its truc sense. The promise of success lies in tlio wise choice of tha conveution, resulting from its sincere determination to put forward the man who coukl best unite andinspire the elements which have the one common ground of condemning the rippe-rism, ! the boodleism and the corporate domination which made state government in Michigan a reproach and au opptK ssion. For tlie assurance that it found him, it is necessary to go no further than the spontaneous proffers of support which came to Judge Durand by the hundreds from disgusted republicans and iConscientious independents in every county in the state -lien his name was first suggested in this connection. With such a candidate, such a leader and sueh a platform, the cause of deceney in public life could hardly be more auspiciously Inaugurafced; lts failure would demónstrate that the electorate prefers to wallow. Of the whole ticket the News says: AVhile the democratie, party is open to the sincerest congratulations for the nomination of Judge Durand and the acloption of a platfoi-m wliich is in accord with public sentiment, the convention d'id not stop in its good work there. The ticket is a strong one from top to bottom. Considerations of ability and fitness for particular offices were given equal weight with the political exigencies of the case, and there is abundant prooi that the party ia once more a unit, that bygone differonces have been adjusted or merged in the greater task of redeeming honest government, and there is nothing to prevent the independent voter or the dissatisfled republiean fixaa lndorsing the ticket as a whole. It is a ticket of which any party might well be proud, and it will, in its entirety, be a powerful incenitve not only to party but to individual aetivity.