Fort Worth Daily Gazette

CONFUSED POLITICS

If a national convention of either or both of the political parties of this country should be held at this time, it would require an unusual amount of address and wisdom to construct a platform upon which either of them could stand together. The difficult task presented to the Democrats at Chicago last year, of bringing free-traders and protectionists together, was a trifle compared with the work that would have to be done if the convention had been held this summer. In New York the Democrats and Republicans both declare against the further coinage of silver. In Iowa they both favor it. Pennsylvania Democrats denounce free-trade, Iowa Democrats denounce protection. Virginia Democrats assert the right of the people to enforce local prohibition. Ohio Democrats brand prohibition as a device for the destruction of civil liberty.

The Republicans are in no better condition, being as badly divided and torn up by the silver question and prohibition as the Democrats are. Still free-trade Democrats and protection Democrats, pro-silver and anti-silver Democrats, prohibition and whisky Democrats all rally round the same flag; while Republicans, as widely apart as are the Democrats on these questions, still cling to their party name and its traditions. Party names seem to stand for more than individual principle. The citizen sinks his judgment in the partisan. When disintegration occurs, and a re-formation of parties takes place on reasonable grounds, we may look for some sense and patriotism in politics.