Las Vegas daily optic. [volume] (Las Vegas, N.M.) 1880-1908, 1896-07-15

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the Chicago convention humbly asks for
the American public a place In finance and
commerce at the feet Of Costa Ricp, China
and Mexic,.
With an impulse born OF bigotry and
fanaticlsm, II flies 10 the face OF the great
commercial nations, closes its Dyes to all
the pages OF history, aud Intent only on
winning the approval Of the populistic
silver pcotectionlsts who are soon to meet
In st. Louis, and who have directed Its
acts In Chicago, 1t arrays itself on the side
OF a debased currency and the population
Of public aud private debts.
Platform and candidate stand for retro
erosion and ultimate barbarian.
Platform and candidate, decided upon
after much travail, have been set up, not
SO much with the expectation of winning
democratic approval, as they have been In
the hope OF gaining the support Of the rag
tag and bob-tail of the repudiators, dollar
clippers and calamityitss OF Bloody Gulch
and Yazoo.
Platform and candidate represent democ-
racy not at all, but are strsaked all over
with financial immortality Of the confeder-
ate states OF America and the bonanza
silver mining league and the corrupt
senatorial syndicate.
1t is not democracy that has thus greed
lily seized and donned the discarded rags
OF McKlnleyism.
1t Is not democracy that, after suffering
two crushing and undeserved defeats at
the hands of calamity -shrieking repub-
licans, now claims a pre-eminent mo-
nopoly of all calamity.
It is not democracy that, having
valiantly resisted for a generation the
allied trusts and tariff protected combines
OF the country, now sets up one Of the
most obnoxious of these trusts-the silver
mining bonanzas-as the corner stone OF
the party's faith.
1t is not democracy that proscribes and
insults the tried and true democrats Of the
eastern and middle states.
1t is not democracy that occupies the
abandoned camps of the republican free
silver traders and hucksters and hugs to
its bosom the discarded gewgaws Of a
political strumpet who Is now posing far
away as a pattern Of virtue.
1t is not democracy that makes one dis
honest republican idea the sole test oil
party membership.
1t is populism. 1t is socialism. 1t is
anarchy!
y n =
The shame OF 1t is that In such a gather.
ing, dominated by the unspeakables Of
every crazy creed, men supposed to be
democrats, have posed for days as anxious
candidates for the ignominy of prefer
ment.
Abandoning convictions, even manhood,
these men lave manifested a cowardice so
base that now, when all their miserable
sacrifices are proved vain, 1t may bs won
dered If they do not despise and execrate
themselves as they may be sure their fell
low citizens despise and execrate them.
From the beginning to the end Of this
CHASTITY performance, not one of these
men has given utterance to a whimper Of
democratic sentiment.
Dishonoring themselves, they have con-
tributed to the dishonor of their party and
their country. Victims Of an ignoble
passion, their unregulated ambition has
assisted in the undoing of an organization
that they were in honor bound to defend.
Humbled and disgraced by interiors
~momentarily possessed of power, they may
some time be pitied, while now they are
condemned and loathed.
4 y = =
The democratic party, for the instant
scattered, is the only American party that
ever was big enough n broad enough to
GOV er the entire republic.
When the great national party went to
pieces in 1860, the very fabric of the union
was shaken. A united democracy could
have prevented the war of secession. The
war Of secession and disunion followed
logically and naturally the disruption of
the party whose ramifications reached
every cross roads and aim ost every hearth.
stone on the continent.
The breach of the democratic party | n
Chicago, while not so spectacular, is not
less pronounced than that which took place
in Charleston in 1860. As the differences
leading up to the separation then were
sectional, and as they were embittered by
extremists whose madness could not be
controlled, so now the party goes to pieces
as a result of the dsvilish teachings of the
irreconcilables whose gospel Of avarice
and sectional hate has found new favor
with the unthinking masses Of the south
and west.
No slave-driver stands ready, to-day,
with blazing torch, to light the flame Of
war; no Sumter awaits in silence and INK
iety the opening gun of civil strife; but
sectionalism, now and forever rampant
when d~emocracy's ranks are broken, holds
within its accursed grasp every woe and
every alarm that has at any time menaced
the American republic.
To this dread spirit the despicable crea-
lures who have controlled The Chicago
convention have appealed, rocking moth.
ing Of the consequences. The mightier
spirit of liberty and humanity must again
be invoked for its overthrow.
Democracy has been Inundated, but it
has not been destroyed. 1t still lives,a pro-
digious force for good, a terror to evil. Ris-
ing again in all the majesty Of the power
of the ever living truth, 1t will smite with
a mailed hand the traitors and merce-
naries who, in its honored name, have
raised the sombre flag Of financial shame
and the hlacker flag Of disunion and hate.
And yet the democratic press of New
Mexico would have the people believe