The Political Situation
BY THOMAS E. WATSON
CAREFULLY studied, the election of Nov. 8, 1904, affords more encouragement to Reformers than any event which has happened since the Civil War.
In smashing the fraudulent scheme of Gorman-Hill-McCarren-Belmont, the people proved that there was still such a thing as public conscience. The whole Parker campaign was rotten—from inception to final fiasco—and the manner in which the masses rose and stamped the life out of it was profoundly refreshing. Roosevelt stood for many things which the people did not like, but they recognized in him a man instead of a myth, a reality instead of a sham.
He had fought abuses in civil life; he had fought the enemies of his country on the battlefield; he had achieved literary success; he had been a worker and a fighter all his days. He had faced the coal barons and virtually brought them to terms; he had bearded the railroad kings and broken up the Northern Securities Combine. Thus, while he “stood pat” on many things which the people detested, he stood likewise for many things they admired, and they gave him a vote larger than that of his party.
Another thing helped Roosevelt. This was the prominence of Grover Cleveland and his “second administration” gang. Apparently Parker had no conception of the bitterness with which the masses hate Cleveland. Because he was cheered by the self-chosen delegates to the St. Louis convention, because he was given a cut-and-dried ovation by the business men of New York City, the Democratic bosses seemed to believe that the more of Cleveland they forced into the campaign the better the country would like the taste of it.
So they not only kept Cleveland on exhibition in the most conspicuous manner, but they dug up John G. Carlisle, Arthur Pue Gorman, Olney of Massachusetts, and other Cleveland fossils, until Parker’s identification with Cleveland’s second administration was complete.
And when that happened, it was “Good-bye Parker!”