Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1896-08-27

SENATOR DAVIS VIEW.
The Democratic Platform Strikes
OF the Governments
Foundation.
FREE SILVER NOT BlMETAlllSM.
Condition of Affairs Worse than War
Would Result from DEM
ocratic Success.
FREE SILVER NOT BIMETALLlSM.

In speech delivered at st. Pdul Au-
gust 4, Senator G. X. Davis pointed out
not bimetallism and showed what evil
results would follow Democratic sue
cess. He said that for the first
time since the election next preced-
ing the great Civil war, we are
required to guard the very founda-
tons and bulwarks of national stability,
of commercial honesty, of financial con-
duct: The Democratic party which met
at Chicago in convention in July suffered
a wonderful change in that convention.
The old oracles and guides of the party
were rudely turned aside. 1t was Occur
pied and Economically possessed by new
spirit-something which has not raised
its head in the political conventions of
either party for thirty years. If there
was any one thing which the 100000
of men who went out TO defend this coun-
try thirty years ago thought that they
had entirely oblterated when they re-
turned, it was the malign doctrine of
state rights, which lay at the bottom
and was the impetus of the greatest
rebellion which ever reared its head
against civilized government. Lo and
behold, in that convention, from the
state of South Carolina, as of yOre, you
find the declaration of the same state
rights, in the same spirit as in the an
Gent time, and done in a connection, my
fellow citizens, which must appeal to the
resentment and repugnance of every lib
erty-loving and cOuntry-loving man. Ev-
eryone who knows anything about me
knows that | am not political admirer
of Grover Cleveland; but if there was
any one act of his administration which,
after the contentious of history have
ceased to rage about his acts and his
memory, that will remain starbright
forever, it was his action, when the
pulse of business beat low, when COM
In Chicago, by which. upon principles and
precedents laid down by George Wash
ington 100 years before, he evoked the
strong arm of the United States to re-
store law and order in this country.
IApplause and cheers.l
This act is covertly land covertly is
too mild a world denounced in the Chi
cago platform. More than that. If there
is anything in this country or in any ma
ton upon which the stability of the gov
eminent depends, the very keystone of
the great arch upon which the ranged
empire stands, the ultimate principle of
absouteism that must exist somewhere
in all governments, it is the courts of our
land, where men sequestered from politi-
cal concerns and political ambitions,
holding the scales of justice even be-
tween contending passions and contend
ing rights, decide for their fellow citizens
what the law is. And for more than 100
States has sat in that exalted position,
midway in the capitol of the nation be-
tween the Senate and the House of Rep
resentatives, a typical object lesson of
their position and of their sublime ca
pacity to restrain either, and has done
more to conduct the government to the
high plane which it occupies, | was going
to say, than all the statesmen which this
country has ever produced. (Applause.)
The Chicago platform strikes at that
court, strikes at all courts, and enun-
ciates its malign prophesy of the reor-
ganization of that court and of any other
court if necessary, to register the fitful
and passionate and repudiatinG edicts of
mistaken and misguided men, of mistaken
and misguided parties.
A Crisis is Impending.
And worse than that. my fellow citi
zens-worse than that! If there was
another thing which the veterans Of the
last war thought they had achieved and
which the loyal sentiment of the North
thought it had achieved it was the OBJ
liberation of all sectionalism in this COON
try; we were to have no South, no North.
no East, no West, any more. The whole
country was to be unity. But in these
later days, we see the solid South com
ing up to the banks of the Ohio and the
Missouri as before the war, and with
sectional demands upon an economic is
sue, precisely such as was made before
tie Rebellion. And now, with the mich
fork of Tillman stirring up the doctrine
OF state rights, with the bomb of AltgoId
IN the denunciatiOn of our courts and of
President Cleveland thrown under tho
very fabric of our government, they have
CHOSEN to put forward as an issue some
thing which touches more immedi.teIv
the conviction, the passions, the cupiIjty
and the honesty of men, and which in it.
self contains more disintegrating influ-
ences 10 our prosperity than all the
causes combined that l have mentioned.
The Democratic convention, or the
Democratlc party, as now organized. has
joined the Populist party in bonds of nm
holy wedlock upon the demand that the
United States shall take a position I,nOn
the currency OF this country which /,
speaking to you under the responsibility
of man who is speaking to his neigh
bors, say that | believe is fraught With
more disaster to this country than tbp
greatest foreign war could possibly br;np
about: (Applause.)
And that is the subject that I have
been asked to talk to you tonight about.
am going to do so, as / said i'm the he
ginning, not with any attempt at deco
rative speech, not denOuncing any men
who may choose to differ from mo for
tell you, my fellow citizens, that many
and many thousand men who differ
from us today on this matter one year
from now will be wondering why and
how they came to do it. (Anpiousa
And so / shall go on. l may be tedious
l am going to give you facts and flo.
ures. l am not going to draw on nv
own imagination for my facts ot ali
The facts that l shall give Won will he
impregnable. 1t is for you to iudDo
whether the deductions / Shall draw
from them can be refuted.
Now what is the question? For n cor.
rect understanding of the question is nj.
ways the first step towards the solution
of the controversy. The question is not
whether there should be the free onf
unlimited coinage of silver in the mint,
of all the nations, by the consent of th,
principal commercial nations of the clob,
upon ratio TO be agreed upon. That !,
not the issue. We all might agree tbo
when this is brought about, as II will he
if the United States conducts itself will
judgment upon this question, / saw w,
might all agree that that would no n,
excellent thing. The Republican mart,
has pledged itself in successive platform
10 labor to bring about internotiona
agreement. The most advanced tbinI
ers upon financial questions in hotl
hemispheres are advocating, especiallv !,
foreign lands, the resumption of the coin
age of silver, by united action of nation