Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1891-01-07
Able Speech Of Hon. VIM. L. Wilson.

Hon. VIM. L. Wilson, of West Virginia,
was one of the speakers at the Reform
Club banquet at Madison Square Garden in
New York on Tuesday night of the 23rd OF
Dscsmber. He responded to the toast
"Tbe 52nd Congress, may it be just,
temperate, and far-seeing''-and spoke as
follows -
Mr. CHAIRMAN AND GENTLEMEN The
Democratic party ia rejoicing over the
most notable victory it has ever won in It's
many political contests But it is already
confronted by the SOLDERING truth that it is
one thing to win.a battle and another, and
often a more difficult thing to make sure
and permanent the fruits of victory. The
greatness of its triumph in the recent
election was not due to the skill of party
leaders or the popularity of party candi-
dates. It was the spontaneous and I'M.
heralded uprising of the people against the
policies and methods of its opponents, and
the SD Congress will be judged in history
by its success in directing this uprising to
those policies and methods. The ssphe.
nomenal capacity of the Democratic party
for laundering" has long been an article of
faith with its enemies, to which they turn
for consolation in times of disaster. But,
Mr.. Chairman, if we look to the only two
Congresses that have been fully controlled
by Republicans in the last sixteen years,
we cannot regard it as merely accidental
that both of them have been swiftly over
whelmed by 'stidal waves'' of popular dis.
pleasure, and that each one has legislated
in it's closing under the ban of emphatic re-
jeotion by the people.
If the blundering of Congress is to be
measured by the condemnation it has
provoked, Mr.. Reeds Congress has not only
outstripped Mr.. Keifer's Congress in
blunderibg, but has achieved for itself a
pre-eminence unapproached by any of its
fifty predecessors.
| Aud if recent political experience proves
anything, it shows that the Democratic
party never blunders so fatally as when it
| abandons OF palters with its true princi-
plea, and that the Republican party as now
dominated, never blunders 80 effectively as
when it has free scope and opportunity for
the application of its principles.
| Of this fact the late campaign was a
signal illustration. That campaign Mr..
Chairman, was not fought on any obscure
and minor issues, but upon the question
on which, as Mr.. Burke truly said. ell he
great contests of freedom haye Seen waged
the question of taxxiiiiig. History 10 in the
main, record Of the successful attempts
/, of q small class, among every people, to
get control Of the government that they
may use the taxing power for their own
aggandizement. The growth OF free in
i stitutions has been the slow and faterinR
recognition of the truth that the power OF
government is not the private property OF
] those who we,d 1t, but the highest trust
for the coed of all the people.
Protection-or the taxing of the many
| for the benefit of the few, whether through
| tariffs, hounties or subsidies, or other
schemes of c!ass legislation, wages never
caas;ng ysar on this fundamental principle
of free and equal citizenship, and never
| lacks for supp ,rt, because it appeals direct
Iy to th., seIfishness of those who see in
license to tax the people the surest and
speediest road to wealth and power that
has ever been discovered. If after twenty
five years of baff1sd struggling the Ameri-
can people have declared war On this false
4 principle, we owe it quite as much to tie
arrogance of its own defenders as to the
unwearyipg onsets of it's foes. 1t is one o.
the safeguards of our freedom, that an evil
principle introduced into our political sys.
TEN, works ont its own extreme and dan
perous manifestations, and brings its owl
, train Of ADJUSTS, ell tending to arouse at
tention and kiDdls Indignation.
The protective principle not only gRvi
I an extreme aud dangerous manifestation o
itself in the Mckinley bill, but IL was tn
q evil spirit that tempted or compelled th
!, Flfty-first Congress to that carecf- Mhic
: ne. adrea for it sinister name. ;n our legisla