The Black Hills union. [volume] (Rapid City, Pennington County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1889-1904, 1895-05-03
J ANOTHER SELL.
BLAND AND BRYAN ISSUE
MANIFESTO.

Stick TO the Old Party and Put y Free
Silver Plank In the Platform
Blatherskites Endeavoring to Dupe the
People.
Messrs. Bland and Bryan have re-
Gently started one of the checklist
political moves that has been fathered
by any set of political nondescripts
since the birth of the devil. 1t is for
the democrats to stay in the old party
and try to select delegates to the next
National Democratic convention hat
Will force the adoption of a free silver
plank in the platform. Then what?
They had an expression on silver in
their last platform which Messrs.
Bland and Bryan and nearly every
other speaker in the political cam
paign of 1892, said meant free silver.
MI. Bland, in a speech in the house
August II, 1893 Congressional Rec
ORD, special session, page 252), said:
We voted the ticket in good faith;
we expected that the platform would
De carried out as was promised-that
we would have tariff revision, and that
when we came to the money question
1t would be regulated according to the
Chicago platform, that we should have
free coinage of silver, which in itself
would destroy this makeshift. But 10
and behold, we find that we were
tricked, that we were deceived. And
use that language advisedly.'
NH. Bryan, in a speech in the house,
August Is. 1898 Congressional Record,
special session, page 410), said:
The last platform pledges us to the
use of both metals as standard none
and to the free coinage of both metals
at a fixed ratio. Does any one believe
that MI. Cleveland could have been
elected president upon a platform de-
claring in favor of the unconditional
repeal of the Sherman law? Can we
go back to our people and tell them
that, after ~denouncing for twenty years
the crime of 1873, we have at last ac-
copied it as a blessing? Shall bimet-
allism receive it's death blow in the
house of it's friends, and in the very
hall where innumerable vows nave
been registered in it's defense? What
faith can be placed in platforms if their
pledges can be violated with impu-
nity?"
This is what Messrs. Bland and
Bryan said with regard to the demo-
cratic platform adopted at Chicago in
1892. They said that that platform
meant free silver. They insisted that
no other construction could be placed
upon it. On that platform, declaring
as they said, for free silver, they both
went into the campaign and worked
for the democratic party. They led the
people "as sheep to the slaughter" n
their party through a slaughter
house to an open grave"
Mr.. Bland, in the same speech from
which we quote above. said:
my God, shall we do such a thing as
that? (~demonetize silver.) Will o
crush the people of your own land and
send them abroad as tramps? Will you
kill and destroy your own industries,
and especially the production of your
precious metals that ought to be sent
abroad everywhere? Will you do this
simply to satisfy the greed Of Wall
astreet-a mere agent Of Lombard
street? 8 + : Any political party
that undertakes it will, in Gods name,
be trampled, as it oIght to be trampled,
into the dust of condemnation, now
and in the future. Speaking as a dem
ocrat, all of my life battling for what
I conceived to be democracy and what
l conceived to be right, I am yet an
American above democracy. do not
intend, we do not intend, that any
party shall survive, il we can help it,
that will lay the confiscating hand up
on America in the interest of England
or of Europe. Now, mark it, this may
be strong language, but heed it. The
people mean 1t, and, my friends of
overwhelmingly, we bid you farewell
when you do that thing. Now, you can
take your own choice of sustaining
America against England, American
interests and American laborers and
producers, or you can go out of power.
We have come to the parting of the
ways. | do not pretend to speak for
anybody but myself and my constit-
uents, but / believe / do speak for the
great masses OF the great Mississippi
valley when I say that WI will not SUBJ
NIT to the domination of any political
party, however much we may love it,
that lays the sacrificing hand upon sill
yer and will demonetize it In this coun-
try.
Gentlemen, you cannot hold the
democratic party together on that line.
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