Nevada County picayune., 1888-08-01
BAKING THE REPUBLICANS.

Congressman Wcavcr's speech in Congress, on July 12th, He says he is q Union Labor man and has never joined the Democrats, but this is good reading, anyway:
 Mir. Weaver: I have nothing to | take back with regard to my course on the issues that arose out of the war. It relates to the distant past, and it is wholly unnecessary. l fol- lowed the standard of the Republi- can party because l believed whilst was doing it that they were right and were the friends of the poor, the lowly and the down-trodden but when l learned that the Republican, ism of 1877 was not the Republican, ism of 1860; when found that they had demonetized silver, which had been good enough for everybody from the time of Washington down to the time of General Grant; when 1 further learned that the Republican party had passed the act of January If, 1875, to convert the greenbacks into interest bearing debt, and an other act to refund the public debt and make it payable in gold coin, thereby robbing the people of fully $500, ,OO0, 900 in this single enact ment when l found they had given away hundreds of millions of acres of the public lands and were making no effort to reclaim it; when l learn ed further that they intended to make it the chief cornerstone of na- tional banking, and that bank notes were to be substituted for green backs as our sole paper circulation, with the monstrous attendant evils of expansion and contraction at the will of the banking corporations, and when read in the speech of John Sherman. delivered at Mansfield, O., that such was to be the settled poll cy of the Republican party, l con- cluded it was tim for me to quit.
 And although l had been mem- Der of the convention of 1877 that nominated my colleage, Mir. Gear, for Governor of Iowa, and had sup ported him in the convention for the nomination. when 1 became acquain- ted with these facts wrote him an open and frank letter saying that could no longer act with the Repub- lican party. 1 could not do so be- cause found they were no longer the friends of the poor, and that while we had emancipated four mil lions of human beings, they were now, through vicious legislation, pur- suing a policy which would, unless arrested, enslave many more millions of the white people of thls country. The events of the past ten years have justified my gravest fears [ Applause on the Democratic side. | l left them then and challenged them to open combat. and have nev- CT asked for quarter, nor struck my colors. have delivered blow for blow, ever trying to keep within the bounds of proper political war fare.
 left ths Republican party when it had so, ,00O majority in Iowa and 1000 majority in my Congressional district over all opposition. Does that look like hunting for an office Does it not rather look like was following my convictions! leave this House to judge of the matter When l began with this little band of Greenbackers to denounce these great wrongs found the Democratic party of the West, which l had so vigorously fought in the past, under the leadership of the gallant gentle man from Missouri (Mr. Bland) and others, were leading in the good work of remonetization of silver, and they passed a bill'through this House for its full and free reinstatement. Applause on the Democratic side.
 found, furthermore, that when the bill for the free recoinage of sil- yer reached the Senate they emascu- lated it, and that Republican Sen ator from my own State (Mr. Ali son) was the gentleman who accom- plished the result. Having stabbed every greenback note in the back with the word "except,' they now sought to send silver forth, maimed and crippled, only to be coined in limited quantities, and then only on on government account.
 found the Democracy of the