Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1892-03-30
THE DEMOCRATS AND SILVER
Representative Watson Says the Party Has
Missed Its Great Opportunity.

Representative Watson, the leader of the
peoples party in the House. has made state
ment of what he thinks about the defeat of the
silver bill He says: THE action in the House
on the silver bill is the death knell of the old
democratic organization. Hundreds of thou
sands OF voters In the southern states have felt
that if financial relief could be had democracy.
as now organized, would give that relief if it
had chance. With a majority of 14S in the
House OF Representatives it certainly had q
chance to pass the free silver bill 1t failed to
do 1t. 1t was only by the help Of nine peoples
party members and eleven republicans that
this immense democratic majority escaped a
Waterloo. Consequently the most con-
servatlve democrat in the south knows
now that democratic majorities welded
under the present organization mean abso-
tuteiy nothing SO far as practical legislation il
Georgia from going into the electoral college
with the peoples party delegation. / conf
IDENTIFY believe the came il true OF several other
southern states. What the democrats may do
with the silver bill hereafter is comparatively
unimpOrtant. They have had their oppor-
tunity They had their majority, with nineteen
outside votes TO help them. They were abso-
iutely unable to pass such very mild measure
OF reform as MIR. Bands silver bill, which only
purports to add 80 cents per capita to the cir
that the alliance demands upon which the peo-
pie party was founded, were true Jeffersonian
principles. claim that today. But believe
now that the immense majority of the demo-
Gratis al over the south will come to our party as
the truest exponent Of the Jefforsonian principle
OF the rule OF the people as against the Hamil-
ton doctrine OF the rule Of money and OF the
classes Let it never be forgotten that Mr..
Boutelle OF Maine, o republican. asked the
iammany democrats to stop flibustering on
the bill and challenged the democratic House
to come at once to a direct vote on the bill
itself. That challenge was refused. and re-
fused by democrats. In other words, o mag
nlhcent democratic majority OF 14S found itself
absolutely powerless to legislate upon a mild
measure Of reform TO which their party is COM
mitted, and upon which they have sought and
obtained votes. We who swung loose from the
democratic party claimed that northern and
eastern democrats had no real sympathy with
our people, but were as much under the domi-
nation OF the money power as the republicans
OF the north and cast After the vote of last
Thursday night no man will ever be able to
successfully deny that proposition"
REPRESENTATIVES WASHINGTON on GAG Law.
With relation to the refusal Of the Speaker to
report q cloture resolution from the committee
on rules in the absence OF request from ma
jority Of his party Mr.. Washington of Tennessee
says: Il am free coinage man. believe we
democrats want to pass it. butsthe flibusterers
will not allow it to go through unless the cou,-
mittee on rules brings in gag rule. They
Will not do that unless q majority of the party
ask it. The majority has refused to do so, be-
cause the democratic party has always fought
gag Law. We fought it when Randall defeated
the force bill in the Forty-third Congress.
Then No recognized the right Of the minor
ity to nlibuster. The force bill was
killed in the Senate last year by the
same tactics. We have always fought cloture
rules. We won IN the last campaign in part on
our opposition to Reeds gag rules,and it would
come with bad grace now, however much we
want this bill adopted, to resort to the very
methods we have fought for a score OF years.
II anybody is to be censured for the shelving OF
the Bland bill it is the democrats who have i'll
clustered against it. The Speaker lis pledged to
do the will Of the majority Of the party. The
majority is on record against gag law and even
for the silver bill, which We want We cannot
afford to reverse our past position on this ques-
ton. 1t is unfortunate that the situation is as
Is, but 1t is better to let the bill go over for
time than to gag and run roughshod over the
majority"