THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CIV, Issue 12323, 13 October 1900, Page 6

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN.

America is already seething with excitement over the Presidential campaign, though the 'election, itself will not take place for nearly two months. To the family of nations the political struggle now going on in Great Britain is fraught with larger issues, but to the average American there is nothing cf greater importance than the contest between Mr M’Kinley, the present occupant of the White House, and his old rival of 1896, Mr William Jennings Bryan. Mr M’Kinley has now held office for four years, and his abilities are no longer a matter of surmise and prophecy. His Presidency has happened to coincide with a most memorable epoch in the history of his country, and has witnessed its first step towards colonial expansion, and its first entry into the Councils of European nations. After the Spanish yw came the Hague Con-

ference, then tbs diplomatic triumph of the Open Door in China), and, finally,■■'the participation in the operation® of the Allies in the Far East. No President since the days of Abraham Lincoln has fallen on such great and stirring times; but amongst those who keep their heads in an electioneering campaign there seems to he a general impression that Mr M’Kinley has hardly been equal to his part. Both he and his antagonist are men, not only of exemplary private life, but also of unimpeachable patriotism. But the sitting President has not shown that massive strength of character which his friends, and even his foreign critics, attributed to bira before he- was tested. In almost every great national movement the President has kept very much in the background. We do not even see his guiding hand. He appears merely to have permitted the Spanish war, in deference to a public agitation. He did not check, or even summarily punislj, gross mismanagement in connection with the army. He has made only ineffectual attempts to cope with the trouble, in the Philippines, and just at this juncture he is threatened with fresh scandals in Cuba, The credit for the rapprochement with Great Britain/ and fox the Open Door policy in China gees to his ambassadors', not to himself.

But if Mr M’Kinley has not shown himself a giant, of the stature of Lincoln or Washington, he has, at any rate, disappointed those who prophesied his humiliating failure. The very immensity of the power put in his hands has made him cautious. Hostility to Great Britain, on the score of its trade competition with the United States, was alleged to be one of •the principal planks of his platform at the last election, and he certainly had little, if any, sympathy with European affairs. Yet his administration has been consistently friendly towards Great Britain, and if he has not urged on, he has at least not opposed American intervention outside its own borders. At home his policy has been that of letting weir alone; he has, introduced no reforms, but he has steered clear of any conflict. Taken all round, Ms administration has been a safe and steady one, that of a practical, sensible man of business, ■who is very anxious not to disturb vested interests, or to provoke any explosions anywhere. .Mr Bryan, an Irishman at heart, as he is by ancestry, sprung of the' same blood as Burke and the great O’Connell, is a man of very different mould. If the expectations formed of Mr M’Kinley were too sanguine, those formed of Mr Bryan, outside his own circle of ardent admirers, are, perhaps, too modest. The rhetoric in which his soul delights, and which electrifies his own countryman, makes it difficult for 'the British, or, in fact, for any foreign critic, to take him quite seriously. He represents a side of the American nature that does not appeal to anyone of Teutonic origin. His emotionalism, and his wild exaggerations in figures and metaphors, appear the merest clap-trap when read in black and) white, without the magnetism of the orator’s personality. G. W. Steevens brands him as “a bom demagogue,” and that is the impression of Him that has got abroad"; but it is corrected by Allen White, who writes from a more intimate knowledge and a far deeper comprehension of the man himself. " The truth of the matter is that Mr Bryan is not a demagogue. He is absolutely honest, which a demagogue is not. He is absolutely brave, which a demagogue is not. He is passionately sincere, which a demagogue is not.” Abundant proofs of Ms sincerity are show in his refusal tc trim on the questions of free silver or Socialistic principles, even though by doing so he would gain thousands of votes. So far from being an actor, Mr Bryan is “deadly serious,” so serious, indeed,, that he is quite devoid cl humour. Unbounded faith in the people inspires his utterances. He loves “ the people ” with the impersonal sort of passion that Burke had for the British Constitution, or for Liberty in the abstract. It is simply because he has espoused the people’s cause so fervently that he has been miscalled a demagogue. His sympathies are with the poor and labouring classes, with all those oppressed by the burden of plutocracy. This is why he preaches Socialism, and why he is the champion of free silver, just as Henry George was the champion of land nationalisation. At first sight we are inclined to be shocked at his apparent profanity, or to laugh at his bombastic metaphor of “ crucifying mankind on a cross of gold.” It needs some knowledge of the Celtic-American to recognise that the phrase had to the speaker a real and burning significance. Adhering to the gold standard means to him keeping millions in poverty by artificial means, solely for fear of injuring the interests of the wealthy men of business. But, however sincere Mr Bryan may be, it is very uncertain whether he is the President America wants just now. Most likely he would, as One critic suggests, “ cut many a fantastic caper, and in the end make a mess of it, as bad, as a thoroughgoing rascal would.” He is too blindly confident that the State can, without delay, " coax the coy millenium out of the roseate dawn and put salt on her tail.” It is not probable that his country will entrust, its destinies to his hands. Americans love experiments, but in all big issues they are cautious, and Mr Bryan might go too fast for them. He represents the warm-blooded foreign element, and Mr M’Kinley the fundamental Anglo-Saxon qualities. But if, by any fluke, Mr Bryan should triumph, there will be room for hoping that the possession of power may modify his hostility towards Great Britain. That has been the effect of office on Mr MTvinley, who began almost as a declared enemy, and has ended ■as a warm friend of the Mother Country. Possibly, too, Air Bryan, when actually in touch with other rulers, might learn that some measure of Imperialism is not so much a choice as a necessity. Bub in domestic affairs his own country could hardly avoid some startling innovations.