Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1892-09-23
TINsLEY & MORTON. Proprietors.
FRIDAY MORNING. SEPT. %, 1892
THERE rs NO OTHER FRIEND.

We trust that every Alliance man in Viz
ginia read the letter from MI. Mann Page
which we published in the VINDICAToR
last week. 1t should arouse the gravest
consideration of their future action by those
who still belong to the excellent organlza-
ton of which Mr.. Page is the President.
MI. Page occupies apeculiar position with
regard to the Presidential election. "A
Virginian, gentleman of irreproachable
private character, and Democrat OF much
usefulness in the past to his party, he has
in a moment of visionary enthusiasm COM
mitted himself to new political party and
separated himself from the thousands OF
Democrats who constitute the bulk OF the
organization of which he is President. Like
all men who find themselves in a similar
dilemma, he is anxious to lay the blame OF
the separation on his old comrades. Find
ing himself in strange and not wholly pala-
BILE political company he labOrs to show
that he was driven there by the default of
his old political associates rather than
through any fault of his own. All such
eminent Virginia Democratic Alliance
men as Wexford Corbin, r. G. Kent, Geo.
Chrisman, Andrew Venable, Dr.. Holt and
the thousands of others who are fighting in
the Democratic ranks, ale to his mind er-
rorists and he is orthodox. His position
reminds us strongly, and we say it with no
unkindness, of that assumed by Gen. Ma
hone when he left the Democratic ranks;
he was 'sbetter Democrat than Ben Hill. y
1t is but human, and it will be found that
every man, who in the next hundred
years, leaves the Democratic party,
will claim that his old party which has in
it's lifetime buried so many new parties,
has left its moorings and not he left it.
In Maj. Pages case we feel much more
sympathy for him than for Gen. Malone.
He means well and in a short-sighted and
purblind way is attempting to do well.
Gen. Malone was political gambler who
was scheming for himself. Like all eXpe-
rienced gamblers he knew the game well
and looked far ahead. He knew that
man leaving the Democratic party and
venturing on the slender and temporary
bridge of a new party, by whatever name it
may be called, has but two things before
him-one to get back to his old comrades,
the other to go on across to the Republican
party. 1t is folly to suppose, with the peo-
pie of this country so evenly balanced be-
tween two great political parties, that there
is any permanent standing place for any
other party. This is everyday history in
politics and in Virginia it is well known by
experience that those Democrats who left
their party for the Readjuster party and
refused to return to their old comrades have
landed in the Republican party.
Maj. Pages chief grievance seems to be
that Grover Cleveland was nominated on
his own platform and lis known to be OPP
posed to every demand Of the Alliance. y
Two years ago Maj. Page canvassed the
State for Democratic congressman who
were opposed to the Sub-Treasury plan, so
we take it, and SO he intimates, the Sub
Treasury question is not fatal objection
in his mind to Mr.. Cleveland. On the
question of silver the whole difference be-
tween MI. Cleveland and MI. Page is
that he is in favor Of free silver coinage if
the United States can get the civilized
world to join it in giving silver this posi-
tion-if not he is opposed to it. That is in
so many words the position of MI. Cleve-
land, and he has supported it by arguments
of force and wisdom. Mr.. Page wants
free coinage qoW and to trust to lnck for
the outcome. But the man who was mon
mated on his own platform has claim on
Mr.. Page and every farmer in this land
prior to and stronger than any that even the
Alliance has. To his courage and self
sacrifice is due the fact that great polit-
cal party is now wagng fierce war against
the high tariff taxation Of the farmer and
against taking the farmer money to set
other people up in business and to give
them monopoly of that BUSINESS. This
single act should entitle Mr.. Cleveland to
the vote Of every farmer.
Mr.. Page says the issue in this canvass
S s'Shall the Dollar OF the People rule ?''
The real issue is whether Harrison OF Cleve-
land shall be elected and MI. Page well knows
vote will be given either to the one OIL the
other. There is, and every man OF judg-
ment knows it, no half way ground that
victory will rest on-neither Third party MOI
Prohibition. If Mr.. Page puts in ballot
for Weaver he knows well that it is a half
vote cast for Harrison, and that it will have
no more effect in electing Weaver than if
he had deposited it in last years bird IS
nest. Its only effect can be to weaken the
Democratic party of Virginia; to help to
beat Grover Cleveland, the only President
that in twenty-five years has held out a
friendly hand to Virginia and treated her
like sovereign State; and to bring on Re
publican administration with Republi-
can Force Bill.
We have said that we regret the position
MI. Page finds himself in. If he adheres
to it he will reap the reward of all who
venture on wild and i'll considered political
experiments ridicule and defeat. In a
year from now the Third party will be laid
in the tomb with the Know n othing party,
the Greenback party and others that we
can recall. 1t will have done no good. but
good deal of harm in the way of wreck
ing the futures of some enthusiastic and
estimable gentlemen like Mr. Page It will
have had few followers in the Alliance and
its whole history in Virginia as a party
organization will in twelve months from
now be looked upon as a joke and treated
with ridicule. The best thing Mr. Page
can do for Virginia, the State he low es; for
Virginians. the people he was born and
raised among, and fol The pleasure of those
who still regard him with a friendly interest
will be to stop following after lis strange
and uncanny political companions before
NOVetn her. and fall in line with his old