Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1893-08-03
THE SOURCE OF DANGER.


How to Deal with the Tariff and Money
Questions.
Whatever is not democratic is dam
gerous-
Into the principles the democratic
party adopted when government by
the people was separated from oil.
garchy the collected experience of TIE
patriot soldiers and statesmen of all
the nations was poured.
Not one has been annulled or mod
itSed since the first democratic president
was elected and the democracy was first
organized into a political force.
The force once organized and the
principles once laid down. democracy
became too great to be diverted by the
follies of a few or to be injured by the
battering of special interests.
Every democratic voter has a share
in the direction of the party: he bears
his portion of the responsibility FOR
what it does or leaves undone. Thus
his personal interest and his pride OF
citizenship are enlisted. He has q re-
gard for the consistent execution of laws
he has helped to enact and for the re-
demption of platform pledges he has
helped to make
Democracy is body of highly trained
political units. No professedly demo-
cratic leader has been able to deceive
his people. Other parties may obey
leaders and applaud the act which be-
lies the once applauded word. A real
democrat trusts the principles he has
adopted and judges for himself whether
they are followed or deserted. The re-
publican party can promise to reduce
the tariff, and then raise it. Such a
shameless violation of repeated pledges
as that party committed in 1888 could
not be initiated by democratic con-
gress without an atonement which
would consign to obscurity every guilty
member.
Each individual democrat has in his
memory and heart the historic strug-
gle of his party against protective
tariffs.
Therefore the Mckinley law must be
replaced with a tariff based upon the
general welfare principle of revenue.
For the party is in power and pledges
must be redeemed.
No act of the party which lately con-
trolled the government is more undem-
ocratic than the Sherman law. The
party is unreservedly under pledge tc
repeal it, and to substitute a measure
for the coinage OF gold and silver with
| out discriminating against either metal.
| Such are the words of the national plat.
form of 1892, passed after the democrats
in every state convention had made the
| demand in language rs plain and well
| considered.
For the democratic party, in or ont OF
| power, nothing is safe which is not
democratic. To tenporize with the
Mckinley tariff or to hesitate in sus.
pending the operation of the Sherman
act would be unsafe for a democratic
congress. In principle. in detail and in
effect these two laws are against the
thoroughly ingrained opinions of the
| democratic masses. They were bought
by special interests and their design
! did not embrace consideration for the
people. Both have disturbed trade and
| offended the natural laws of wealth
Both have brought losses upon the
producers and consumers. Together
they have contributed to create the un'
certainty which has contracted the
movement of capital and crushed hun
dreds of enterprises.
The tariff and money questions which
will come before tine Fifty-third con-
gress are not the accidents of the sum
mer. The future of the whole Ameri
can people enters into their settlement
The democratic masses know the
pledges of the party. because they
voted upon pledges. How can demo
cratic congressman face their people
next year and endure the comparison
of pledge with performance if they are
capable of no better finance than a
blind stand against suspending the pur'
chase of bullion, and of no better taxa
ton than miserable. Intellectual, in
Inundated rehash of Mckinleyism?
These are considerations OF import
The democratic party has a history ane
destiny. Its history is the story o.
its constitutional doctrines. Its des
tiny is the restoration of the spirit OF
the constitution. If a democratic con
gress and Il democratic president can dc
no better than to put their bendet
backs under the Sherman and Mckin
lev laws there will DE one chapte
| which the democrats Of the next cen
fury will pass over in silence if the.
can.
Whatever is not democratic is dan
| perous-St Louis Republic.