The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-09-16
THE CANDIDATES COMPARED.

CudunCey OepeW: IN MS new OK
speech, said:
''While Mr.. Bryan was practicing
law before he entered Congress, Maj.
Mckinley was serving the people 10
that bo0y. While Mr.. Bryan, in.the
legitimate prosecution OF his business
as a lawyer, was foreclosing mort
cages on Nebraska farmers, Maj. Nc
Kinley was preparing measures and
promoting policies which would en-
able the farmer to pay off his mort
cages. While Mr.. Bryan, as a repre-
sentative in Congress-, was preaching
free trade and reputation, Mai. Nc
Kinley was preparing measures which
give work, wages, business and good
times and sustain the national honor
the national credit and sound money.
While Mr.. Bryan says: My expert
ment of free trade, or all OF it, l could
get, has proved disastrous. Please try
my experiment. of debased currency;
and perhaps that will succeed Maj.
more to the policies and the practices
ington to Harrison made this country
the greatest, the freest, the wealth.
lest, the most prosperous and the best
for its people Of any land in the
world"
This comparison is unjust. There
is no evidence that Mr.. Bryan fore
closed mortgages on Nebraska farms.
L he did, he was simply performing a
professional duty. You might just as
we'll hold the surgeon, who cuts off
the soldiers leg, responsible for the
cannon-ball which made the operation
necessary. And it must not be for
gotten that during the period of our
protective policy, 5000, 900 mortgages,
according to the census Of 1890, were
recorded in ten years on real estate in
this nation; and 10000 people came to
own one-half the wealth of the whole
country. Prosperity does not consist
in the building of lordly mansions for
the rich, but in the universal prosper
ity of all classes. The splendid mill
or factory, which brings an immense
income to it's owner, may be delight
to those who only look at the external
appearance Of things, but the eye OF
the philosopher sees the little chill
dren put to work in their tender
years, and the individual worker the
slave Of soulless corporation instead
of employing himself, as in the olden
time, and supporting himself and
family, while manufacturing shoes or
harness. or weaving WOODEN goods or
cotton goods. or making blacksmith
work. The concentration Of manu-
features in a few hands, under the
present system, is a curse to the whole
country; it has perhaps cheapened
goods but it has also cheapened man
kind.
Mr.. Depew says: "Let US return
once more to the policies and and
policies and practices and measures
which from Washington to Harrison
made this country the greatest, the
freest, the wealthiest and the most
prosperous, and best for its people, of
any land in the world"
Brother Depew seems to mix up Nc
Kinley and his high tariff bill very
strangely with events which occurred
one hundred years before his time.
There .was no Mckinley bill in the
days of George Washington, nor for
many years thereafter, and the people
of fifty years ago we're prosperous and
happy under conditions entirely diff
ferent from those which now exist.
The country from the Atlantic Ocean
to the Mississippi was subdued and
settled under those primitive condi-
tions; mortgages were almost un-
known; tramps had not yet come into
existence; the spinning wheel was in
every house, and the people were hap
py. The daily papers did not exist, or
if they did they did not contain the
vast catalogues Of criminals and sui
cides which now astonish the world.
We have moved fast, but we have
moved to destruction. We are max
ing princes and paupers by the same
instrumentalities. 1t may be that we
cannot go b lck to the former state of
affairs, but we can at least see to it
that the lo,cs do not make the rich
richer and the poor poorer.