Kansas City Journal

No Democratic Reaction,
From the Philadelphia Press.

David B. Hill is wiser than those newspapers which have trumpeted the recent elections as showing a general political reaction. He does not attach much importance to them. and shrewdly observes that local elections at this early date cannot be regarded as having any significant bearing one way or the other upon the public opinion of the country. They are due almost entirely to local conditions, and, so far as they indicate any broader feeling. it is not a conviction but only an impulse which will respond to changed circumstances.

If it were true that the elections portended a change. it would be as serious a matter for all right-minded Democrats as it would for Republicans. For the Democratic organization is still held by the champions of Bryanism and any present tendency towards Democratic revival would mean the ascendancy of this dangerous influence. All friends of public order and sound money and social stability have hoped that the Democratic elements which revolted from Bryan last year would recover possession of the Democratic organization. Until they do. the Democratic party cannot be redeemed and its advance cannot be regarded without alarm. The ruling Democratic influences to-day stand just where they did in the last campaign. and any measure of power they may gain is as much to be dreaded now as it was then.

The only way in which their control can be shaken is to change the situation and present new conditions. There must be a practical demonstration that their claims and their contentions are wholly unfounded. This can only come with the success of the present administration and with the return of prosperity under its policy. The administration must have a fair chance to work out its policy and a fair period for the realization of its fruits. When its measures shall have been perfected and practically tried, and when good times shall come with them, there will be an end of the discontent which underlies Bryanism and a visible proof of the fallacy which runs through it.

There can, therefore, be no greater folly than the hasty and precipitate declarations of Democratic journals, that are not in sympathy with Bryanism, proclaiming a political reaction. Such statements are equivalent to the proposition that the people who rejected Bryanism last year are ready to accept it this year. This is not true. and the journals which have been misled into such declarations know very well it is not true. If it were. and if there were any prospect that such a change would become permanent, they would lift their hands in horror. Such a condition would menace us with the same perils which we and they fought so hard to escape last year. Such a battle is too serious to be lightly invoked, and the danger ought not to be magnified by a reckless or inconsiderate misinterpretation of existing facts.