Los Angeles Herald, Volume 39, Number 15, 26 October 1892 — THE WAY OUT OF THE WILDERNESS. [ARTICLE]

THE WAY OUT OF THE WILDERNESS.

A contemporary felicitates itself with the delusion that Republicans who strayed into the People's party have had their eyes opened, and are coming back in large numbers to thetr first love. Tbat sounds well, but an impartial observer would be glad to know what great changes have been wrought in tbe Republican programme to bring about so apocryphal a transition.. The abominable McKinley tariff, which diverts the earnings of the masses to a class of favored monopolists, still confronts the country. The force bill is still an impending danger, upon which the hearts of tbe Republican leaders are fondly set. There is certainly nothing in tbe national aspect of the campaign to operate upon the minds of Republican Populists to return to the g. o. p. How is it with other issues ? We can hardly suppose that there is a swarm of Populists running over to the Republican party for the purpose of electing a legislature that will send Mike De Young to tbe United States senate. This would be a stretch of imagination which even a Republican editor, outside the Chronicle office, could hardly reach. Yet there ie nothing more certain than that the state would be in great danger of suffering this calamity if the Republicans should succeed in capturing the next legislature. Not one of the legislative candidates running on the Republican ticket in this county dares take the position that he will oppose De Young if elected, whilst some of tbem are his stauncbest friends. Let us suppose, if such a thing is supposable, that Walter S. Moore should be elected to the senate instead of General Mathews, does anyone for a moment believe that he would not do all in bis power to send Mr. De Young to the United States senate? Nobody. So of the others. Why should any Republican Populist rush back to his party to bring such a calamitous event about? The mere statement of the case shows its impossibility.

And when we come down to county matters, is there any reason whatever why the taxpaying Populist should vote for the Kepublican ticket? He, like all others, has felt the dire effect of Republican rule in this county. He knows that the enormous $1.45 tax rate is made necessary to mcci. the saturnalia of reckless extravagance indulged in by the Republican county officials, and that if they are again placed in power, it will not be a question of $1.45 on the $100, but a much larger rate.

The people who have had to contribute from their hard-earned means $1,---300,000, to meet tbe waste and lavish expenditure of the county officials the past year, are in no mood to return to power a party which has proven so recreant to its public trust as to deliberately loot the earnings of the taxpayers.

If the Republicans who have gone over to tbe Populists should make another change, tbey will be actuated by reasonable principles, and not by the phantom of a bygone sentiment. They will go over to tbe Democratic party, which is tbe party that will put a quietus upon the McKinley monstrosity, return Mike DeYoung to lus congenial employments, and save the county of Los Angeles from Buffering again under the rule of a reckless, extravagant and corrupt administration.

We have no doubt that many of the Populists who contemplate a change of heart will be ruled by sound principles aa well as self-interest, and these will be led over to the Democratic party as the only political organization that can carry the people out of the wilderness of

mal-adminiatration, in state, in national and in locai government, which they have so long and bo patiently endured.