Mexico weekly ledger., 1896-02-13
ONE MISSOURI CONGRESSMAN
CALLS ANOTHER A PoLITI-
CAL BENEDICT ARNOLD.
Story of the Eight Silver Senators
Turned Against Its Authorize
quotation by the District
Predicted Misrepresen-
tatlon Worse Than
Cowardice.

If the Missouri Democracy. 1t took
ID the story of the eight Senators who
nad voted for free silver knowing that
enactment of such a measure
mean national bankruptcy and
ruin, and made application OF 1t TO
Halls own case. Between political
instrumentation and political cow
De Almond drew a COMPARE
son, and then he denounced his col
league as a betrayer of his constitu-
ents. He scored Hall for having
claimed the credit of authorship of the
tax proposition when that
did not belong to him. For half
hour he poured out upon him his
scorn, while the free silver Democrats
almost every sentence.
A PORTION OF DE Almonds SPEECH.
1 was somewhat startled the other
day to hear my colleague (Mr. Hall)
say that he had heard from an official
high in the Treasury Department that
probably within the coming twelve
months there would be an issue of a
thousand millions of bonds. A thous-
and millions of bonds! A billion of
debt to be fastened upon the people OF
this country! Why and for what? l
am not disposed to treat this merely
as the vapid defamation of a sensa-
tionalist, because l have observed that
as gentlemen change their views upon
this money question, and as they get
closer to the views that prevail at the
Treasury Department and farther fronA
the views that prevail among their
constituents, they become daily better
authorities upon what is intended and
what is likely to happen about the
Treasury Department..
MIR. Chairman, my colleague sug-
gested some other things, to which it
seems to me, as a Missourian, that l
ought to give at least passing atten-
ton.
Perhaps the crying sin of the day is
that the politicians do not rise to the
summit of courage and tell the
people wherein they are in error.
Perhaps this is true. But it has some
times seemed to me that graver harm
comes from the fact that some poll
t~icians, appearing before the people
as the advocates of certain doctrines,
obtaining the suffrages of the people
upon certain pledges; after they are
clothed with power by the people,
after they are commissioned by the
people to carry out the peoples will,
fall away from their professions, for
get their teachings, and turn their
backs upon those who given
them honor and power, and join with
those who are opposed to them. (Ap-
plause.)
[ know that some men stand con-
spicuous in history for having changed
their course, and changed their pro-
LESSONS, when the change, according
to the Judgment of mankind, has not
been in the right direction. l know
that through twenty centuries and by
sixty generations of men the mem
DRY of Judas Iscariot and of the great
betrayal has been kept alive, that
upon it might be heaped in perpetual
freshness the excavations of man.
kind. l know that Benedict Arnold,
who shed his blood in the cause OF
patriotism and afterwards turned
against his country, is remembered as
a frightful example-thank God, one
of the few examples-held up for the
condemnation and the execration OF
universal manhood and patriotism.
y
do not attribute to my colleague
any suggestion that he was sent here
by representatives of any of those
classes. l know that the men who
sent him here, the men before whom
he app cared as an advocate in sea.
son and out of season of the free
coinage of silver, are, upon the aver
age, as honest and as sincere as car
be found anywhere in this Union. l
myself, like all men, | suppose have
some admiration for courage. l car
admire the man who, clinging to his
own opinion, though it be newly ac.
quired, is willing on account of it te
surrender place and power, is willing
to retire from the walks of public life
to the shades of private life.
Now, / do not know what persons
were referred to in the illusions about
the Hsfeathering of nests" 1 know, Mr.
| Chairman, or 1 believe l know, that
the person who obtains the suffrages
| of the free born citizens of Missouri
by advocating doctrines to which they
are devoted, and who then change his
views SO as to turn himself against
which he advocated before them and
which they wished to see advocated
and voted here, is liable to find nc
finer lining for his nest than the rough
straw, unless some great duck shooter
shall drop a little down into that nest
/ daughter and applause
He is reported to have said that hi
had learned the error of his way, and
he had become satisfied that the SOUND
money theory, as interpreted by join
Sherman and Secretary Carlisle, wa
the salvation of the country, and tina
he could no longer subscribe to thu
silver heresy; but, having been elect
ed by a free silver constituency, upoI
a free silver platform, he would vot.
for the heresy. I did not hear hin
say it. But | know thatit was report
ed all over my State that he did saI
SO, and that the declaration was mad,
by him, and never did ! hear a con
tradiction of it. II that be true, then
while the gentleman may have the in
formation that he says about the posi-
ton of the Senators and their votes Oh
that question, he has no sicharge" Il
make against them. Because If it b,
true, If they voted for the bill, believ
ing it to be wrong, and that followin,
in the track of its passage would com,
the injury they r reported as proph,
esying, why should he make a charg,
against them, when they are buiIdin,
what the gentleman himself is report
ed everywhere As saying he would d,
himself.