Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-11-02
WILMINGTON, THURSDAY, NOR. 2.


The United States Senate has at last
transacted the business for which it was
called together, in compliance with over
whelming popular demand for relief,
by President Cleveland twelve weeks
ago. The record of the past six or seven
weeks of filibustering, obstruction, YER
bosity and contemplated surrender ard
betrayal of trust in this body has been
a discouraging and heart wearying re-
cital, but the fiimness of the President,
the loyalty and patriotism of a few
staunch friends of honest money and
national prosperity among the members
who placed duty above everything else
and kept it there when assailed by what
for the moment may have seemed like
party expediency, and the pressure of
what eventually became irresistible pub
lie opinion, have brought the country
safely through the crisis and demon.
strated that, in the end, the majority
shall rule and that the peoples will
must be done. As the New York Times
says:
Recalling the absurd and humiliating
spectacle presented for the past two months
IN the most august deliberative body in
the world" noting the faulty with which
at the close of this shameful exhibition
men like MIR. German speak in admiration
of the great debate" by which the country
has been swept as by simeon of the
desert, we have only to be thankful that
AZ last we have come to the end, and that
the purchase of silver is to stop. We may
very well take without too many qualms
the stump speech that Is injected into the
belly of the repeal bill, and rejoice that
the substantive act of repeal is accom-
piished. 1t is not perhaps, very signifi-
can't, but there is encouragement in the
TACT that there were more Democrats who
voted for the repeal than there were who
voted against it, As finally recorded, there
were 43 votes for the measure-exactly a
quorum of the Senate-23 of them from
Republicans and 20 of them from Demo-
Gratis, while the 50 negative votes were cast
by ~ Democrats, 10 Republicans and 5
Populists. 1t is not record for any party
as party, to be proud of, but 1t is a
supreme evidence of the tremendous power
Of popular sentiment when once aroused.
We have reached this through terrible
experience. but we have reached il, and
the road will never again have to be
traversed.
Let us trust not. While the vote of
Monday does not settle affirmatively
the power of the majority to legislate, in
the Senate itself, 1t does go long way
toward settling this issue negatively, by
demonstrating, as it does, that, in i'm
portant crises, there will come a time
when the voice of an aroused people
will make it distinctly and definitely
plain to their lawgivers that the inter-
ests of the people must not be sacrificed
on the altar of senatorial courtesy"
impotency or what may temporarily
take the alluring guise of party har-
mony.
Bnt alrs well that ends we'll, and
thanks to Democratic President, a
Democratic House and Democratic
Senate, the first great step has finally
been taken towards undoing the evil,
disastrous and paralyzing legislation in
herited from Republican maladminis-
tration. We have cast off one great bur-
den that was weighing us down into the
sloughs of national bankruptcy and re-
pudiation and have cleared the decks
for wholesome and wise financial legis-
lation. The achievement, as the Balt.
more Sun says, "augurs well for the
other great items of the Democratic
platform; the reform of the tariff and
the repeal of the odious Federal cleo.
ton laws"