The Bossier banner., 1896-08-13
NO.. 25


preachers their salary. But Carnegie
wasn't happy and got the tariff taken
off and then got all his manganese from
South America and the West India is
lands. The collapse came here, of
course, and the business was aban-
doned. That's the kind of protection
we got.
But what is democrat now? Some
times a consequential gentleman who
bankers after an Office will swell up
and exclaim: Il am Jeffersonian
democrat" and the editors have a nest
egg in Jeffersonian democracy and
hatch it frequently. What is that3
His biographer says the most material
article in his political creed was that
"the will of the ma jority must govern.
This may sometimes err, but it's errors
are honest, solitary and short lived"
There is no special democracy in that.
All parties endorse it. Jefferson said
that difference in politics was not
reason for the removal of competent
and faithful officers and he did not re-
move but very few while he was presi-
dent, and those were for misconduct.
But now the democratic doctrine is to
turn the rascals out and every Office
holder is presumed to be a rascal.
I have tried in vain to make
these modern political garments
fit Thomas Jefferson, but they
won't do it. In his day there was no
quarrel over gold and silver, nor state
banks, nor income tax. He went into
Office in good circumstances and came
out insolvent. Even his home at Mon
ticello was levied on and would have
been sold but for the generosity of q
few wealthy friends. After his second
term was out he was not sure of being
allowed to 60 home without arrest and
giving bond. On becoming a public
man he resolved never to engage in
any kind of enterprise to improve his
fortune. He kept this resolve faith
fully for fifty years, which was as long
as he held Office. He married a young
and beautiful widow and could play
the violin exquisitely, both of which
were democratic usages, and still are,
though neither playing the fiddle nor
shooting ducks are put in any modern
platform.
But the issue now Is concerning the
currency, an abstruse speculative ques-
tion about which the average man
knows so little that he ought to be
ashamed to talk and thereby show his
ignorance. And yet there are here
and there good citizens who profess to
know all about it and will talk about
''souud money" and Jeffersonian
democracy as gushingly as a professor
of political economy in a northern col
lege.
wish we could put the x rays upon
this question and explore it, but as we
cannot and as the great men of the na-
tion conscientiously differ on it 1 am
going to pin my faith to the purest and
best man know of in public life. He
is as pure in private life and
as poor as Jefferson and could
have written the declaration of inde-
pendence if he had lived in that day,
for Jefferson was then only thirty-three
years old. My admiration for William
j. Bryan is very great, and l shall
bank on him with more reliance than
on the platform. A republican con-
gress can knock democratic platform
into fits, but they can't move Mr..
Bryan from his convictions nor his in
tegrity. When these gold standard
papers assail him and make sport of
him he can say to them as Job did to
his three friends: "No doubt ye are
the people and wisdom will die with
you" BILL ARP. in Atlanta Constitu-
ton.