The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-05-22
THE NEW PARTY.

sues" with which the National Peoples
Party" was inaugurated at Cincinnati the
other day, as compared with the quiet,
earnest manner in which few devoted
and broad-minded citizens of national
reputation, and well-deined, single pur-
pose, launched the Republican party just
thirty-seven years ago.
There are few even among the most pro-
nounced Republicans of the present day
who can realize how modestly conservative
were the demands and purposes of the
founders of their party. Theirs was in no
sense or degree a crusade TO turn the coun-
try topsy-turvy or to revolutionize the
government. Like the founders of the
government, they had patiently borne,
and protested and petitioned. Not until
one after another solemn compromise. for
which valuable consideration had been
given, had been violated, and not until a
fixed purpose had been manifested to carry
slavery into territories consecrated to
freedom with the consent and by the votes
of representatives from the slave states;
not until these policies had become intol-
cradle was the new party organized as
matter of necessity and the only possible
means of relief
And then it addressed itself to the one
single object of preventing the extension
of slavery into territories expressly con-
secrated to freedom. In his letter of &C
ceptance the first Republican candidate
for President crystallized the party's creed
and its purposes into the one terse SEN
tence, 81 am inaexibly opposed to the ex-
tension of slavery over territory now free,
and as inlexibly opposed TO any interior
ence with the institution by congress or
the general government in the states
where it now exists"
This was the sum and substance and the
entire scope of original republicanism.
The original abolitionists were fierce in
denunciation of this narrow Limitation,
but the Republican party was firm in
maintaining, and none more So or more
clearly and emphatically than its great
apostle and leader, Abraham Lincoln.
And nothing but the madness of the Sc
cession movement, and the dire exigencies
of life and death struggle for the saliva
ton of the Union could have diverted
Lincoln and the party from the mainlen-
ance of that limitation, or could have in
duced them to attack the constitutional
rights of shareholders within the slave
states. The whole movement, SO quietly
inaugurated, so modestly pursued, so
firmly adhered to, was of the very essence
of conservatism.
oil q - tha ro11 Id Do L.,
ment is in its every aspect and character
istic the direct antithesis. Here we have
motley gathering of more than fourteen
hundred wild-eyed men and women, I'M
known to fame and unidentified with any
worthy deed accomplished, each loaded
with his and her distinct and petted ism,
the whole confused and homogeneous And
in contrast with the quiet, dignihed Re-
publican enunciation of q single definite
and firm purpose, we have roof-splitting
whoop and wild war-dance over the pro-
mitigation of motley mosaic of fantasies.
That particular branch of the assem-
blage whose appearance in public life and
whose prominence has sole connection
with reckless and ruinous fnanciering,
step to the front as apostles of and in
structors in finance. Having wrecked
their own fortunes, they offer their
services to guide the country along paths
that viii lead to greater prosperity. 1--WE
( are divided upon some minor matters, {"
( said their president, Senator PETER, shut,
/ thanks be to God, we are united on this:
/ The money power must be deposed'
THE money power" as all sane people re-
/ cognize, is the power of those who confine
f their expenditures within their income.
/ and save the excess. To "depose" this
4 power is to destroy the results of industry,
I management and frugality, and to remove
( the incentive to the exercise of those quail
| tiles. To depose the money power, prop
/ erly considered, is 10 throw an insur-
mountable barrier across the pathway of
( civilization and progress.
Coupled with demand that "all reven-
+ ues, national. state or county, shall be
limited TO the necessary expenses of the
government economically and honestly adj
/ ministered," and restoration of the doc
trinc of equal rights to all and special
| privileges 10 none, this strangely incon-
sistent new party demands that govern
! ment bank notes be issued al inGaitina,
and loaned at per cent. per snnum when
demanded by the people, on non perish
/ able products.
/ One need not be a master OF highest
finance, nor a phenomenon in business
capacity to understand that the creation
and issue of volume of money limited
only by peoples disposition to borrow
and their ability TO deposit "non-perish-
able products" would soon produce glu,
| of that particular kind of money which
would make it worthless. True, these
| pundits propose to make their bushels of
money "a legal tender for all debts. Public
and private" but they would find that
with such money and such law the ditH-
culty-the impossihility in fact-would be
to make any debts. Such money and such
law would be the deathblow 10 credit
But with money made and loaned by
the government at per cent. interest on
security Of non-perishable products. what
becomes of the "equal rights" of those
who are refused loans AT any rate of interest
for lack of such perishahle products. or
who have grievous surplus of perish
able" products? And how can the govern
ment be economically administered ifcom-
| PEELED 10 provide warehouse facilities for
| the storage OF an unlimited amount of IN.
perishahis products for which there is no