Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1896-10-08
For Veterans.


tracted considerable attention. The
writer Classics the complaining vet
Grams into two classes The first class
small number of chronic grumblers
who have always been out of touch
with and sympathy with the great
mass of veterans and have generally
given aid to soldiers hating papers
and opposition 10 all measures OF real
service to the old soldiers. With
that class the writer has no patience.
The article concludes as follows:
With you of the other and much
the larger class. we have the most
profound sympathy. We know you
are good faithful comrades and honest
citizens, who went out west and have
labored nard to build up homes and
farms and businesses. You have been
visited by many misfortunes and
hardships, some common to all of us
and some which have set with partic-
ular hardship on your several locali
ties. You have had to bear all that
the rest of us have, and in addition
have had drouths, grasshoppers, biz
yards, and other tribulations, joined
to an abnormally low price for the
products of your labor. 1t is not so
surprising that some of you feel al
most desperate, and become an easy
prey to speciCus demagogs, who prom
| Use radical lief. You are like sick
men, who are tempted to turn away
from the regular trusted physician 70
accept the nostrums of the loud-talk-
ing, everything promising quack.
You, we feel sure, are amenable to
reason, and we would reason with you
as we have done all these years, ia
the spirit of the truest Fraternity,
Charity and Loyalty.
Now, comrades. let us avoid all
heat. eschew all epithets and consider
this question with the utmost calm
ness. In the first place, who are
these men whose counsels you are ac-
cepting and whose lead you are follow
ing? Bryan is mere figurehead and
mouthpiece for the men behind him,
so that we can leave him out of con
sideration. Do you find behind him,
among those who controlled his nom
nation, and the utterances of the Chi
cago platform. and who will shape and
control his Administration, if elected,
any friend Of yours, any man who has
been on your side on any question
during the last 80 years? Can you
mention single one Of them who has
advocated a measure during that time
that you felt was essential to the we'll
being Of the country for which you
fought? Can you indicate one Of
them who has not been in violent OPP
position to such measures Has not
the event repeatedly proved that the
success of these same men, in the
measures that they were tiercely urg-
ling. would have been Of incalcula n
injury? Has ANYTHING since the war
hurt the country SO terribly as the
/ partial success of these same men in
1892? Is it possible that men whom
you know to have always been deadly
wrong, have suddenly become more
right than the men who have success
fully resisted them? What reason
have you for thinking that you can
trust these men, in an event of mo-
mentous Importance. better than
tho Sc with whom you touched elbows
on the field of battle, and since in a
score of contests for the Nations pros
perity? You can only Judge of these
men by their past. What is there in
it to inspire your confidence that they
can lead you and the country out of
the Slough of Despond? Can you
point to single promise of theirs
that was ever fulfilled single
prophecy that was realized? Will
you take the nostrums OF quack who
has always killed his patients? Are
you not all the men whom you have
found to be right in the past, now in
most resolute antagonism to these
men, fighting them more determined
ly than at any time since the close Of
the war? Are not nine out of every ten
of you old, well-known, well-trusted
comrades strenuously opposed to
them?
These questions. comrades, you can
1 l. I.