Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1890-12-04
rR,cxEp sY REPUBLICANS.

deceived
When Mir. Cleveland. in his speech at
Columbus, said that the Democratic
party will remain attached to ''our plain
and frugal people," he gave utterance
to a truth of great significance. The
Democratic party is the especial cham
pion of the plain and frugal people OF
the country.
This general remark must, of course,
be understood with the necessary linn
itations. There are rich men in the
Democratic party as there are in other
parties There have always been rich
men in the popular party, and there al
ways will be. No reasonable prejudice
can be cherished against wealth in the
abstract. In fact the plain and frugal
people are usually quite as DESTROYS of
acquiring wealth as others, and, in point
of fact, the ranks of our millionaires
are from time to time recruited by the
addition of men who began life in the
vale Of poverty. The acquisition of
wealth is dependent upon the desire
that exists among men to better their
conditions, and to that desire all human
progress is to be attributed
The plain and frugal people vino COM
pose the rank and file of the Democratic
party are not hostile to wealth, of which
they appreciate the advantages, but to
the special privileges which the wealthy
sometimes claim as their right. They
deny that special protection is due to
the rich, because the rich are by virtue
of their wealth the best fitted to protect
themselves. The Democratic principle
of equal rights to all and exclusive
privileges to none," is necessarily in
the interest of the poor, who are always
in the ma jority, and can not expect to
obtain exclusive privileges for them
selves. The most which they expect,
and what they have right to demand,
is that they shall not be made the vic
Tins of the rapacity of the rich and
powerful. The wealthy are in no spe-
cial danger, except from the spirit of
communism, and this is very often
the extreme position assumed by
the enemies of the extreme pretensions
of favored classes. The most effective
antidote to communism in all it's varied
forms is justice to the masses who de-
sire, and have a right to demand, an
equal chance to compete for wealth and
honorS. So long as the avenues of
wealth and preferment are open to all.
on equal terms, the growth of commu-
mis- tic sentiment in a dangerous degree
is i'm possibl because it encounters de-
termined resistance from the sturdy mid
die class, which will not renounce its
chance of winning the great prizes that
are within the reach of many of it's
mem bers. It is only when wealth seeks
to be exclusive and to shut the door
in the face of ambitious poverty that
the comm unistic spirit assumes danger
Gus proportions. Thus on the well-known
principle that extremes beget extremes,
we find that the extreme pretensions
of wealth give the greatest encourage
ment to the extreme professions of pow
erty. These two extremes meet in the
demand to enjoy what others have
earned.
The Democratic party has always re-
lied mainly on the support of the plain
and frugal people of the country
people who realized that it was their
lot in life to work and to save. At the
foundation of the Government it was
so. The parties theT known as Fed
eralists and Republicans were mainly
distinguished from one another by the
circumstance that the former was the
party of caste and privilege, the latter
of equality. The former leant toward
monarchy or aristocracy, and would
have established them in this country
had it been strong enough; the latter
was the champion of democracy, by
which was meant simply the rule OF
the plain and frugal people that formed
then. as it forms now, the bulk of the
population. Even under the admins
tration of Washington the name OF
nanon0rot Tor
of reproach to those Republicans repre-
gorgeous enough in attire to satisfy the
aristocratic tastes of those who assumed
to be the better element The Wing
party, which may be called the assignee
in bankruptcy of the Federalists, mum.
bered among its leaders many men who
assumed to belong % superior caste.
Arrog ating to themselves the monopoly
of intelligence and virtue, they re.
preached their opponents, who largely
earned their livelihood by manual la
Dor, as s'the great unwashed" Deu1oc
racy. Nevertheless, 1.-The great un.
washed" were too numerous for the ad
vocates of caste, and SO generally out
voted them that the Wing party fol
lowed the Federa1ists into involuntary
political bankruptcy.
The successor of the Wing party, afte,
the Know Nothing episode, assumed q
cast-off name of the Democrats, and
called itself the Republican party. But
apart from the transitory issues afforded
by the slavery agitation, this party
which called itself Republican was es
sentially the old Federal party. Since
the slavery issue was settled the Demo
Gratis that attached themselves to it or
account of their opposition to slavery
have been returning to the Democratic
party. where they belong. The so
called Republican party is the old Fed
eral party revived, so for as its essen
tial principles and tendencies are con
cerned, and it is continually becoming
more and more SO in its personnel I'm
donbtedly, there are many thousands o,
the plain and frugal people of the coun.
try among its rank and file; it could
| not exist without them. But they
are in the Republican party be-
cause it's character and purposes
have been misrepresented to them The
leaders of that party, while constantly
discriminating in favor of wealth, while
continually seeking to build up privi
lodged classes with power to lay what
burdens they choose upon the masses,
have had the assurance to hold them.