The Forrest City times., 1894-08-03
caprice or rreed of . majority may see i,

let them go to the camp of the enemy. They are less dangerous there than in our own.
 T know fl is true we have not yet tasted the fruits of the victory we won. I have heard as you have done the gibes of the men who so loudly prate of protection to American labor and point with assumed disdain to closed fac- tories, stagnant marts of trade. and armies of idle nen legitimate fruits of the struggle We helped to win. and have felt the sting of regret that single man with intelligence suf- f1cient to entitle him to the franchise of Amer ican citizenship should have been deceived by such cry.
 "I have. however, too much faith in the in- telligence of the electors of this republic. in the sober second thought of the plain people of this nation. to believe they can long be mis- led in placing the responsibility for the disas- ters we are suffering where 1t belongs
 Tn time these people will stop to inquire how 1t Is possible that the democratic party can be responsible for a financial panic that had it's inception in a footed treasury that four years before was turned over to republican administration by democratic president gorged with hundred millions of gold in ex- cess of every natural demand against, and of every legitimate requirement of the govern ment and know when they do this they will place the responsibility on the heads of those who in four short years dissipated this mag nifcent sum without diminishing in the least degree the burdens of the people, and in its place preses.ed to the scared creditors of the nation the empty skeleton of a treasury from which every dollar of legitimate surplus had been extracted
 II know. too, that sometime in the future when voluble politicians speak and write of the benefcent effect of protective tariff to the laboring men Of the nation. they, too will stop to ask how 1t happened that after an ex- perience of more than thirty years. under the most rigid protective laws a free people ever &14 .fLf-. sA...s came could cover the country with organized armies of destitute men striving to reach the seat of government and lay before congress their helpless condition that they might beg of it for public assistance.
 "Surely a system that was conceived iii char ity for laboring men after trial so long and so complete should have left them sufficient of the fruits of their toll to tide them over panic of few short weeks without organized effort to bring the government to their aid
 No, gentlemen, this mask of protection of American labor under which the eager recipi- ents of tariff favor have organized their trusts and combines to suck the life blood from the very veins and arteries of labor everywhere has been torn by recent events until the man who refuses to look through it and see that 1t covers nothing but the bony fingers of greed, that have used it so long and veil, will de- serve no sympathy If he becomes or remains the serf 1t has so largely helped to make of so many.
 And turning from the men who iaoor in the protected industries to that vastly greater body who cultivate our farms, operate our rail- ways and conduct the innumerable classes of business that none are so brazen as to claim. derive direct benefit from protective laws. democracy must ask them to stop long enough to read the lessons a few short months have crowded into the history of country whose destinies they hold in their own hands and control by their own votes.
 They, too must remember we are standing at the end of more than three decades of most intense protective policy on the part of the government: that no change in this policy has yet been effected; that 1t is still iu prac- ticnl force
 ..And what Is the result :
 Trusts and combines on every hand; the fruits of labor taken from the many and given to the few; mtllionaires counted by the thou sands: homeless men by millions; rumblings of discontent from every quarter, but loudest and longest in the very centers of the most highly protected industries of the land; strikes and lockouts everywhere armies of idle men gathered in our cities and marching over the country, vaunting their Restitution in the face of the world, with here and there the howl of the anarchist, the knife of the assas- sin and brand of the incendiary emphasizing with fire and blood discontent that has be- come n1most epidemic and threatens the sta- Diilty Ql the government ltSeu until the laSt resort Of a nation, an appeal to the military arm for protection, has become public neces- sity.- -
 Surely there must be 6 cause for all this.
 Where is 1t to befound:
 Certainly not in any governmental policy for which the democratic party is responsible, for in the whole period of a generation 1t has been unable to subject any one of it's theories to a practical lest.
 And equally certain 1t is that If these con ditions are due in any degree or to any extent to the acts of n political party the responsi- bility for them must rest upon the shoulders of that party whose theories have been nodded into laws that for thirty odd years have con trolled the policy of the government.
 T wish I could stop here and look forward with undimtnished confidence to the final con- summation of the wishes and faithful fulfllment of the promises of the party as I understand them. I know. however cannot do this.
 Tt would be a cowardly evasion of truth to attempt to conceal the fact that the democratic party has reached acrisis in it's history that threatens it's welfare if not its life.
 Tn what now say speak for no faction in that party for no man or set of men within it, for I have neither right nor authority to. speak so
 "As an individual may rightly express my views on a matter of such grave importance to the party of which I am a member, and avail ing myself Of this privilege want to say that when the history of this administration Is written. I hope 1t will not contain the state ment that the democratic party of this union was incapable of keeping 10 any extent or in any degree the principal promise upon which it rode into power.
 Within the party councils want the voice of crimination and recrimination hushed at once. want gentleman. to realize that we live in a country of vast, of varied and sometimes conflicting interests that affect different local ites in different ways: that many general laws must of necessity be the result of compromise; and want the democratic members in congress to agree upon the very best measure Of tariff reform it is possible to pass and make 1t the law of the land without further delay.