The San Francisco call., 1896-07-05

shield, nor 10 Q bandon our position as the
peoples party to become, like the Repub-
licans, porty of class and of section.
''For the first time in its history the
Democratic party is urged to make the
cardinal principles of its faith and the
leading issue of its campaign silver mono
metallism-a new and deprecated stan
dard OF value. The demand is for free
coinage of silver at 16 to l. which means
that the power ana force of Government
are to be invoked to change our unit of
value anc to substitute fifty cents of silver
for dollar in gold and then to adjust the
business OF the country, all wages, earn
ings and savings, all debts and credits, all
public obligations and the National honor
to this deprecated standard. The de-
mand comes from section and a class
and appeals to paternal government to
give value where none exists. Is this de-
mand a sound Democratic principle
Does it accord with the teaching and
record of our party, with the faith of JEFF
ferson and Cleveland, with it's unf1inching
position always in favor of sound and
hard money, with its opposition to paper
legal tender and Sherman silver bills, with
its constant, undying enmity against pa
ternalism and protection and its proud
boast of being the peoples party, broad
as the Nation, controlled by no class or
section of selfish interest. May the dele
gates here gathered to proclaim our old
Democratic faith put this question to their
consciences before plunging US into heresy
and schism.
Never yet has this demand been
plank in any National Democratic plat
Gov ~ L. soka -,
convention of 1876 and thereafter aban-
doned. Three times in twenty years we
have elected Democratic President with
candidate and platform hostile to such
doctrine, yet cordially supported by loyal
and united party. If free coinage of silver
is Democratic doctrine it is such doctrine
in the year of our Lord 1896, never in any
year before, nor likely to be in any year
hereafter.
ut is not only new but a radical de-
parture. 1t destroys our present standard
of value and ends all hope of bimetallic
standard. No power under heaven has
established and maintained, or ever can, a
bimetallic standard at a ratio where
one coin is given double its intrinsic
value. To make so cents of silver
by force of government equal to dol
lar in gold will, by inexorable laws
of nature, over which government is
powerless, drive out gold, contract oar
currency, depreciate our standard, unset
tie business, impair credit, reduce all
savings and the value of all wages. And
the masses of the people will be the
heaviest losers and the greatest sufferers.
Five millions of our people, with nearly
500, 900 IN our savings banks, will be
paid their claims in q deprecated cur
reBcy; 1900, COO of our people with life
insurance policies, $500 900 who have made
payments to cooperative and frater-
nal associations, nearly 7.000,0 600 of
members of industrial mpanies-these
and many more, with the millions depend
ent upon them, all will suffer in being
paid in money of less value than they
parted with. And every wage-earner paid
in deprecated money will suffer a reduc-
ton of his wages; payment of his present
wages in a 50-cent dollar would reduce
them just one-half. The masses would suf-
fer and the great corporations owing these
debts and employers of labor would reap
benefit at the expense of the people. 1t
is the old principle and experience of pro-
&c ton over again, the power of Govern
for the benefit of the few to the burden
and expense of the many. Surely this
principle has no place in our Democratic
creed.
This new doctrine, Republican in prin-
ciple, is in line with past Republican pol
icy. only just discarded in the hope that
the Democratic party may be deluded into
putting on Republican cast-off clothing.
Only six years ago, coupling protection
with silver, the Republican party passed
against Democratic protest, the Sherman
law, which soon brought panic and dis
aster, and was repealed upon the unani-
nous demand of the conservative and bus
mess interests of the country. But four
years ago the Nation permitted it's free
silver leaders, upon their own confession.
to grant and declare the Republican be-
lief upon this vital question. Protection
again made its bargain with silver.
deceivlng the people with straddle and
cheating its partner to the trade. And
now it has nominated as its candidate one
whose record is more shaky even than
its own, and whose cowardly silence is
ominous to future trade and commerce
Can our party of to-day with any sincerity
or upon any Dem ocratic principle follow
il these Republican footsteps? Can it
!,ope for any success in repudiating its
cwn honorable record? Can it even main
tain its honor and its life in this depart
ure from its own faith?
MAY / in closing say a word of the DO
litical results2 / am not here to utter any
threat of any section of our party. But l
state an evident fact when l say that if
our party takes this false step it will lose
much of its National character, abandon
some of its great principles and there will
be thousands and tens, yes, hundreds of
thousands of its old soldiers who cannot
follow it as it pursues its will o. the wisp
under its new and radical leaders. As a
Northern and National Democrat l
implore our brethren in the West
and South, by whose side we would love
to fight, whose principles we have jointly
held, for whose interests we have labored
and suffered and in whose victories we
have done our part, 1 implore them to
save our party from course which will
rudely break the closest ties and send us,