The Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Or.) 1862-1899, 1894-03-16
DEMOCRACY DEFENDED.

Iican club pronounced the following
eulogy on the old opposition party:
As student of American history
and an observer of the forces brought
to bear upon it, l am compelled to
pay this tribute to the democratic
party:
1t is the nucleus around which has
clustered and in whose arms has been
shot to death with rifle ball and ballot
box, the surviving political monstrosl-
ties of despotic ages. 1t has, with un-
erring instinct and never-failing cour-
age discovered and marshalled for de-
feat in the political arena and on the
feld of battle the unwholesome, vi
cious and inhuman tendencies of man
kind. 1t beat the drum and called to
execution the institution of human
slavery. Its bugle sounded and from
haunts of sectional pride and false
ambition came that. dreaded foe of
American union, and state sovereignty
fell to rise no more. 1t gathered the
ideas antagonistlc to sound finance, ex-
hibited them in the state banking sys-
tenn, and saw them destroyed by an
oppressed and outraged people.
Whenever'an idea foreign to our in
stitutions is born it is embraced, briefly
enjoyed, and led to the scaffold by the
democratic party.
l am not speaking of the motives of
men. I am not he who shall judge
another mans servant ] am not con-
sidering the objects. and aims of pollt-
ical parties. l am dealing alone with
the forces which seem to be working
out the destiny of the American peo-
pie, and such forces are surely admir-
able when they act well the part for
which they were designed. All bless
ings take their value from cost. 1t
is a law of God, as we'll as of man, that
we shall not have something for moth
ing and the greatest blessings we en-
|joy have cost us the greatest price.
The right of man to labor for him.
self has cost millions of money and
oceans of precious blood. To estab-
lish sound commercial and monetary
systems has kept the world IN agita-
ton for ages, and for the privilege OF
kneeling to God when, where and how
conscience dictates we have been COM
lpelled to stain the earth with blood
since the creation of man.
Those whom we call heroes IN the
worlds conflicts might have secured
the blessings we enjoy at less fearful
cost, had the democratic party been
less determined or powerful. We are
accustomed to speak of this party as
belonging to the United States and
having its birth at the time of our
constitution, but it cannot be thus
limited in time or conditioned in
lspace. 1t is much older than our gov
ernment and dates farther back than
the landing of the Pilgrim fathers.
| 1t has not always borne its present
name, it has many aliases and has ~
sumed all imaginable forms. 1t may,
always be known by its negative or OBJ
Elective policy and its hand has been
raised against the progress and pros.
perity of man from the time of Adam
to the days of Grover Cleveland. 1t
led captive and enslaved people who
enjoyed the greatest political and re-
ligious liberty of any on the face of
the earth in the reign of Pharaoh and
has denied people struggling for
freedom the right to establish repub-
lican form of government in the days
of Cleveland. 1t opposes step by
step the progress of philosophy, science
and religion. When mankind was fret
emerging from darkness it founded no
school Of learning, but denied the cir
culation of blood in the human body,
the spherical form of the earth and
the axillarv and rotary motion of the
heavenly bodies. 1t is difficult to ad-
mire and impossible to love that which
always opposes the right. With finite
wisdom and human sympathles we
cannot but censure what seems to have
been the cause of delay or defeat in so
many noble efforts. We look around
us to-day in our own land and cannot
but blame democracy for standing
a. g.. oc e,ooooo >ond honpi-