Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1882-09-16
LAISSEZ FARE.

ave must let it alone:" that il
the one conclusion on which al
constituents Of the Bate party agret
in reference to the public debt ques
ton. As soon as the convention o.
last June had advanced so far in it
organization as to elect temporary
chairman, the gentleman elected
laid it down as the principle on
which their further proceedings
were to be founded that the deb
question must be set aside in favor
of other more important matters
The acclamations with which this
position was hailed were fair in.
d;cation OF the treatment which the
question was to meet with at the
hands of majority of that body
the four or five majority and mi
nority reports of the committee Oh
resolutions demonstrated clearly
the conflicting views which were
held on the subject, bat the plat
form demonstrated the readiness 81
all who made up that majority tc
abandon their opinions as matters
of no consequence; moreover, n
soon as the delegates got home
again, everybody made haste tC
explain that tine platform Aseli
meant nothing, and was not bind
ing on any member of the party.
The universal sentiment in short
was "you must ignore the debt
question for fear of dividing the
party"
This was not new position
had heard a good deal of it in for
mer times, especially when l had
the honor of editing the CnRoS-
ICLE, and the responsibility of de-
termining its political position in
those days | was favored with u
good deal of counsel from gentle
men engaged in politics and the
burden of their song was always,
"say as little rs possible about a.,
you will cripple the party by tying
it to any defined position" My
friends and readers of those days
need not be told that / acted in but
little accordance with such counsels,
that L was rather pronounced in my
views OF the debt question. How
ever, my present point is that,
while this was generally private
counsel, given in the quiet of friend
ly conference, it is now made the
publicly stated principle of an eX-
tensive political Organization, en-
bracing in its ranks many of the
highly reputed leaders Of what has
been known among US as the DEM
Ocratic party; our campaign speak
ers from one end of the State to an
other tell us we must sink the
debt question in the interests of the
party. ~.
"LaiSSez .tttire" then, or Let it
alone" is the publicly avOwed doe
trine of the Bate. party as regards
the public debt /; it is moreover the
only doctrine on which all the
members of the party agree. This
being novelty AS principle pub
licly avowed, l anticipated with
much curiosity the public exPosi-
tons Of it to be given by politicians
80 well known to me as Messers
House and Harris, and have never
listened with more interested at
tentiOn than / did to their addresses
here and that OF Senator Harris at
Erin. The question / wanted to
hear solved was why the Democrat
ic party should abandon its princi-
pies 10 save it's life,
RI propter vitdm Uive,Idi perttere cdusaS:
for, Of course this suggested the fur
ther question, what is the Demo-
cratic party for without Democratic
principles?
Col. House was the first exposition
of the new doctrine, but confess l
did not derive much light from his
exposition. His speech was mainly
defensive, and this, perhaps, is suf-
ticient excuse for its failure in pos
tive definitions. He had boon
called upon to explain how he could
defend his present position, attack
ing as it does the settlement of the
debt made by the present Legisla-
ture, when he himself had urged
that settlement upon members Of
the Legislature, maintaining that it
was a fair proposition on the part
of the States creditors, and that
the making of any counter PROPOSE
ton would be inconsistent with all
principles previously avowed by
the Democratic party. His defense
was that he had defended the ex-
isting settlement simply because it
was "A settlement, that he had advO-
Gated every settlement that had
been made and expected to defend
every one that may be made here
after; of course this implied his
readiness to defend every uIISettIe-
me1It that may be made as well as
the unsettlement of the present ar
for no new settlement
can be made without unsettling
that which proceeded; nor does it
exclude that final settlement to-
wards which all these settlements
and unsettlements are leading-the
by total reputation.
IL is not my present purpose to
argue against the Colonel's defense.
l have only TO say of it that it did
not furnish what was looking for,
an authorized defense of
the InisSez fare doctrine: il was a
statement of that doctrine, indeed
one of the plainest had heard, but
no defense Of it; 80 | waited in pa
thence the manifesto of Senator
Harris, which was to follow in
few days.
The Senator did undertake sys-
defense of IdisSez fare and