The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1894-11-03
AN ADDRESS
To the Voters Of the Fourth Congressional
District of Louisiana

District Of Louisiana.
| We hereby declare that Honorable H.
w. Ogden, having received majority of
the votes cast at the primary election held
throughout the district on October 6, 1884,
is the nominee of the Democratic party
for representative to Congress from the
Fourth Congressional District Of Louisi-
ana, and as such is entitled to the hearty
support Of all true Democrats.
We hereby urge all Democrats to lay
aside past differences and unite in giving
him a rousing majority over his opponent
at the coming general election. Our
said nominee is presented to you as an
earnest and avowed advocate Of the free
and unlimited coinage of silver at ratio
Of l6 to and as favering the repeBl of the
10 per cent tax on Stale banks, the pas
sage of the anticipation bill, tariff for
revenue only.
The canvass having been specially rnade
ON these issues the acceptance Of the
nomination carries with it the moral and
political obligation to use all honorable
efforts to have them carried into effect,
and the vote so recently taken on same
amounts to instruction on said Issues.
We take this occasion to point out the
fundamental principles of the Democratic
party and the difference between these
principles and those advocated by the Re-
publican and Populist parties.
The foundation stone of Democracy is
its opposition to class legislation in all of
its forms. It's shibboleth now, as always,
is. Equal rights to all, special privileges
to none." 1t believes that the only le-
Ultimate functions of government are the
due protection Of life, liberty and prop
erty, and that whenever the government
is made to help one class of men ut the
expense Of others it does an act which is
beyond its constitutional power to do, I'M
wise ID policy and wrong in principle.
Both Of the other parties, on the other
hand, advocate class legislation, though
of different kinds and for the benefit of
different classes. Both meet on the idea
of paternalism, or the reliance of the
people on the government for aid and
support in their business affairs.
The Republican party favors the MAN.
tenance OF high tariff system, which is
miscalled Protection, but which is in real
ity robbery of the masses for the sole
benefit OF few favored classes the direct
result Of which system has been to build
up in our midst monstrous trusts, monop-
olies and made milli0nairee whose power
to control legislation and levy further
tribute on the toiling masses is the most
humiliating spectacle for which we have
to-day to blush as citizens of free Re-
public.
The Populist party, feeling vaguely
that the masses of the people have been
oppressed and reduced to poverty by
class legislation. would essay to correct
the evils from which they suffer by class
legislation of different kind and in the
interest Of different class.
Both are fundamentally wrung, because
both rely on the government for what
ought to be the business Of the people.
The Democratic party holds that the
government ought TO be entirely and abb
solutely neutral between it's citizens. pro-
tecting all in their lives, liberty. property,
but leaving them unfavored and unham-
pered in the pursuit OF wealth, thereby
making its citizens self-reliant and indie
pendent. The evil tendency of paternal-
ism is well illustrated by the remarkable
spectacle recently exhibited in the sugar
district of Louisiana. A large body of
men heretofore protesting themselves as
Democrats in principle deliberately threw
off their political allegiance to that party
and formally entered the ranks OF Repub-
icanism.
Their sense of right and wrong obscur.
ed and blurred by the corrupting and de-
grading influence of system which tax
ed the masses OF the people in order to
give them large but unearned fortunes,
they deliberately abandoned principle AZ
guide to political action, and assumed
self-interest as such guide.
No better argument is needed to prove
the success of Democratic efforts at tariff
reform than this action of the bounty
fed sugar planters, in leaving the Demo-
cratic party for the avowed reason that
it took off from the shoulders of the
masses burden that had been laid there
for their benefit by the Republican party.
Cd. G. SCARBOROUGH,
Committee. L. G. BARRETT,
BEN. p. EDwAREs.