Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1892-09-02

Hon. Basil B. Gordon, Chairman of the
Democratic State Central Committee, has is
sued the following address to the Democratic
members of the Third party:
SANDY, RAPPAHANNoCK COUNTY, !
August 9, 1898.
To the Democratic Members Of the Third p0rty.
Three years ago was honored with the
leadership of an undivided party. Whatever
claims | may have possessed to your conf
dence, am not conscious Of having forfeited
them and it is in their name rather than as
the representative of rival organization,
that ask leave to call your attention to some
features in the coming campaign which seem
to me vitality to affect the welfare of our
people.
However opinions may differ as to the
measures you advocate, no sane man can
doubt existence of the evils you seek to
remedy.
The widespread depression among farmers,
from banking facilities, the fierce and grow
ing competition of the West, more than justi-
fy the formation of party whose single OBJ
ject shall be the correction of these grievan-
ceS.
Were it in your power to secure the success
of your ticket it would be idle to suggest a
surrender of your position, or even the con-
cession of any material point AS it is the
most enthusiastic member of your party can
not hope to carry the State this fall At most
Democracy and the success Of the Republican
party.
FOR THEM TO DECIDE.
It is for you to decide whether that success
would further your cause, and how much you
will grain by abandoning those principles
you have SO long supported and those COM
rades by whose side you have fought for so
many years.
The Democratic party offers you by the re-
peal of the State-bank tax an increase of cur
rency estimated by many as even larger than
would have resulted from the free coinage Of
silver.
1t promises you relief from those taxes upon
the neceSsaries of life whose only justification
is the plea that they have advanced wages.
1t is not necessary to go to Pennsylvania to
better position than yourselves to know that
it is false.
Republican supremacy, on the other hand,
will mean contracted currency. 1t will
be squandered in the futher Generalization of
the Union soldier Above all, it will mean
the passage OF the Force bill.
The silence of their speakers, the faint
hearted denials of their local leaders, cannot
make you forget the supreme effort they made
to pass it two years ago and the solemn pledge
renewed to their followers in Minneapolis
scarcely two months since. The men who
voted for it are still in the Senate, the Presi-
dent who urged it is still the, candidate of his
party, the press that advocated it has never
retracted syllable of its praise.
THE NEGRO HAS SET HIS HEART UPON 1T.
This negro has set his heart upon it, and de-
mands it as the price of his vote. If human
experience sheds any light upon the future,
and human language is capable of expressing
thought, their first act will be to entrench
themselves in power by the passage of such
bill.
A measure described by one of its former
advocates as 1.-THE most infamous that ever
crossed the threshold of the Senate needs
little condemnation at the hands of its pro-
posed victims.
In the very words of its author, cit means
bayonet behind every ballot Rather
than describe the horrors of such condition
1 will trust to your patriotism to avert them.
shall not doubt that you have done SO with a
full sense of the responsibility involved, and
actuated by as sincere a love of our common
State as any class of her citizens.
Very respectfully.
BASH. b. GORDON