The citizen. (Frederick City, Md.) 1895-1923, 1896-08-14
The Republican Platform.
lsnecial to the Citizen.l

gates at the Republican Natlonal Ooh-
vention, when approached one morn
ing by an emissary of Platt and Hanna,
retreated swiftly and in great confu-
sion, naively exclaiming as he went,
ooh, sab, sence you seen me Use been
SEEM How ever this may be, certain
it is, according to a st. Louis paper,
that whereas, in his individual capac-
ity as an unobstrusive member OF
society. the colored brother came clad
in simple gunny sack, not even Solo
mon in all his glory was arrayed as
he when in single night he blossom
ed forth in the gorgeous apparel OF o.
fetal greatness.
Nor indeed should lie be deprived OF
the honor of sounding keynote mod
ulated low enough to suit even the SEN
stive ear of the Hon. Lloyd Lowndes
himself The colored man came, saw
and was seen and, if in the universal
scramble of manufacturers, corpora
tons, trusts, combines, syndicates,
/ bankers. money-brokers pension lobby
4 lists, bounty grabbers AID spoilsmen,
I he, true child of nature that ne Is,
/ could not suppress the eXultation of
! individual success, but should strike
/ that one responsive chord, why should
we chastise his sincerity or seek to dim
/ the luster of bis achievement.
Mr.. Reed said the other day,
whether in veXatIon of spirit or from
feeling of unusual humility. we cannot
imagine, that the candidate represent
ed the average sense of the party; he
might have added that the platform is
redolent of the flavor of both.
Viewed as a whole, the platform Is
the most concise and explicit crede Of
dead issues that has ever been serious
! ly proposed as program for pro-
gressivr people. 1t resurrects and en-
phaticaIiy reasSerts every fallacy that
has been fatal to the Republican party
in the past, and rejects the only plank
in all the accumulated wreckage of
thirty years that has any bearing what
soever on the great financial question
that now SO profoundly moves the Da-
ton.
Let us come a little nearer to this
singular structure upon which Hanna
has placed the Republican party, first
drawing the veil of charity over the
declaration in favor of the extension of
civil service reform.
The first thing that strikes the cur
ious observer Is that Hanna could be
/ humorous as well as sarcastic: he states
that the Republican protective policy
is opposed to individual favOritism and
sectional discrimination.
He could tie subtle too; he says his
tariff POUNDS the strength Of ali on
the strength of each This great
/ truth (that the whole u the sum of
all the parts. no matter how unequal
the parts may be l. almost a. coDsol-
ing a. the statement of one of the lect-
urers in the Suns Financial School,
that, compared to the man who owns
nothing. tue fortunate possessor Of u
tweuty-dollar bill j. a plutocrat.
The platform demands a tax upon
every pound Of sugar that the Amer
I lean people use, yet NJ gold Democrat
has denounced the sugar trust. Verify,
/ in the language of Hanna, protection
and reciprocity are twin measures"
The platform finds room TO require
due process of law for the brute who
outrages the chastity OF our homes,
but can spare no space wherein 10 ex-
| tenuate the faults of white labor rem
dered desperate in a vast industrial
struggle for life. 1t cries out loudly
. against lynching, but on the question
whether our kindred shall be tried by
injunction or shall be tried by jury, it
Is "a silent as the tomb of Pharoah.
Hanna could be generous too. Hav-
ing thrown over a plank To the friends
of temperance and another To the new
woman, he SHE'D over a small spar To
the gold Democrat, who was easily sat
lstied with any thing that had the
Hanna dollar mark-so well contented
with any doctrine that had not the
stamp of real Democracy. There was
no real necessity for the money plank,
as the platform contains an equally eff
fectual, if not as speedy, method for the
absorption of wealth and the debase-
ment of labor, by taxing the one aud
exempting the other; but that plank at
I all events furnished the friends of the
Administration" preteXt for their in
! gratitude to the masses, who have so
/ long given them the first offices and
| the highest emOluments in the COM
monwealth. The alliance is scarcely
/ one of unaIloyed pleasure, for the plat
form curiously enough, carps at the
farming of American credit to alien
| syndicates, though the first step to
that end was taken by the Republican
| party itself. But there may be solace
in the conviction that Hanna does not
object to money syndicates, provided,
always, that they are highly protected
home industries, and moreover, that
criticism is by no means as revolution
airy as the Chicago platform which con-
dennis any teafficking with any syndi-
cate.
The money plank is based upon the
preliminary statement of two facts
| and they are both false.
First, it says that since 1879 "every
dollar has been as good as gold" when.
IN point OF fact, at the very hour that
, , talsehood was uttered, there was in cir
culatiOn five hundred aud thirty mil
lions of dollars in silver and paper.
representing bullion value tired bU
tau at two hundred and eighty mil
lions of dollars in gold, and a financial
contraction and consequent loss TO the
producing-the industrial class of this
country, of two hundred and fifty mil
lions of dollars And still the platform.
Reed and the whole gold standard
press cackle about dehasing the curren-
cy. Who has debased il?
Secondly, it once more asks US To be-
IlRVQ