The Ship Canal Double-Cross at the Democratic Convention

OLYMPIA, Aug. 20. — (Special Correspondence.) In the retrospect view of the Democratic state convention, the King county delegates deserve respect and a modicum of admiration. When it came to the final issue between their domestic interests and the Northern Pacific-Democratic combination opposed to them relentlessly, they solemnly declared that their personal and home principles were superior to the principles of parties and politics. They built this platform for themselves, jointly and separately, as against the Pierce county platform condemning the ship canal and its advocates in congress, and declared in the presence of the convention that they would do and die upon it. This was a stroke of wisdom and bravery, as a declaration of individual principle strongly approved by such able Democrats as M. M. Godman, B. L. Sharpstein and R. B. Glasscock, who positively declined to accept nominations after the Pierce county condemnation scheme had been ingrafted on the party platform.

Whatever the forensic talents of James Hamilton Lewis, it is plain that his capacity as a political tactician has been overestimated. Had he committed his convention campaign to some mouth other than that of Junius Rochester the fate of events might have been different. Mr. Rochester's declaration against the ship canal in the Pierce county convention, as an accredited representative of Mr. Lewis, was accepted as an avowal on the part of the latter that he would not contend for the canal as against the hope of his own nomination. Here the downfall of King began, and at every movement, until the eleventh hour but heroic rebellion of the delegation under the leadership of L. C. Gilman and J. T. Ronald, she continued to sink into what must have otherwise proved permanent political degradation.

True, Mr. Lewis as good as repudiated his first chief lieutenant in the delegation, but he remained firm to the last in fealty to his state manager, H. J. Snively, the upshot of which loyalty was that Snively was nominated for governor on a platform he would not accept as chairman of the resolutions committee, and on which Lewis himself would not stand.

To lay the situation bare in all candor, Mr. Lewis was either duped or woefully short-sighted. Snively was a candidate for the gubernatorial nomination from the outset, and he has been an enemy to the canal ever since the Review, as the mouthpiece of the Oregonian in Eastern Washington, raised the issue on federal appropriations in the state. The majority of the Spokane delegation was in sympathy with Snively's secret hostility to the canal, and stood ready to carry out his programme.

Wednesday night the anti-canal minority plank was fairly and squarely beaten. Steve Judson, of Tacoma, settled down to the parliamentary amusement of obstructing further proceedings so as to leave the platform open for a reincorporation of the Pierce county idea. The obstructive appeals from the decisions of the chair were sustained by the convention with gradually but persistently increasing majorities. Pierce was under. The chairman, catching the spirit of the convention, swept the legs from beneath astute Judson on another appeal, having him stranded. The champion of that majority was Mr. Snively. What did he do? Mr. Lane, of Pierce, after Judson had been crushed, moved for adjournment, and with the majority of the convention at his back, with the platform reported by himself as good as adopted, Snively informed the chair that the friends of the appropriations clause were perfectly willing that the platform should go over till next day.

When the test vote came the real friends of the canal in the Spokane delegation voted the delegation as a unit for King county. The conferees of Spokane, the shrewdest and most active of whom was Judge Nash, had decided in favor of the Pierce proposition, and the Snively men were suffered to vote the delegation as a unit against King.

When Snively was proposed the rush of the Lewis men began. King cheered, and for the first and only time during the nominations awoke from her stupor of anger and despair. Pierce chuckled. Judson nudged O'Brien in the ribs, and when Snively was still two votes short of the necessary majority Mr. Lane, of Pierce, dropped his roll-call tab, jumped to his feet and moved that Snively's nomination be made by acclamation. James Hamilton Lewis came forward later and lauded his ingenious lieutenant in the choicest rhetoric. It seems that had he been gifted with less ingenuousness he should have exclaimed: "Et tu, Brute!"

In the debate on the merits of the canal the orators of King at the outset made out a very lame case. Above all, it was not shown that it was the boat railway clause that dragged down this ship canal appropriation. This is a vital point in the discussion which should not be overlooked. Canals are waterways. Boat railways are not. The Columbia boat railway is an experiment as to the practicability, expediency and cost of which expert engineers differ. This is not the case with the ship canal. The engineers agree as to its desirability, need and practical efficacy. No issue arose in congress or out of it as to its public utility and its character as a public improvement until raised by the Portland clique interested selfishly in sustaining the commercial supremacy of that city and in promoting the re-election of Senator Dolph.