Semi=weekly graphic., 1896-10-28
PLUTOCRACY
 VS.
 VEAL H,

WEA[ l + What proateth man if he win the whol world and lose his own soul2'
 That is the admonition the Ameri can people would do well to reaec upon in this great political crisis Let us paraphrase it: What will fl profit the country to have either tho gold or silver standard, if in the struggle we lose our liberties? Witt all due respect to the able and elo quent idiots on both sides of the money issue, it may be set down as Q certainty that, whether we have gold or silver as our standard ol value, country with a population of seventy millions of people, the assessed value of whose real proper ty aggregates upwards Of a hundred million, whose trade lays tribute on every port, whose products of cotton and wheat are essential to the peo- pies of Europe, whose manufactures, where they are given half a chance, drive those of other nations out of the worlds markets-we say that no such nation, whether its money consists of gold or silver, can be bankrupted and ruined The cur rents of finance and trade may be disturbed and great disaster may re- suit from a mistaken or false money system. But unless the courage, energy and manhood of the people are crushed, all the elements of trade and industry will speedily re- adjust themselves to the new con ditions and prosperity and wealth will be restored. But when the free institutions of the country are con yerted into engines of monopoly and injustice; when the liberties of the people are destroyed, there can be no resurrection. Right here is the real issue, says thd New Orleans States
 The Roman Republic was not de stroyed by it's fiscal system, nor by the aceumulations of wealth through the indutry, energy and intelligence of the possesors thereof. From being the grandest and greatest republic on earth Rome became the most despieable, remorseless and atrocious despotism the eye of his tory ever contemplated. What was the cause of this wonderful and woe ful transformation? Many causes, no doubt, contributed to the change; but o ger and above all others, more than all others combined, the can cer, which, taking root in the Ro- man system, finally polluted and ruined the whole State, its trade and industry, it's military prowess and it's social life, was precisely the same that has fixed itself upon the vitals of the American republic, and unless cut out of the body polite, root and branch, will work the ruin of our institutions. This is not fanfaronde. In the palmy days of the Roman republic no one dreamed that Cato and Scipio, with their following of patriots and war riors, would be succeeded by Sulla and his demagogues and butchers; and even then no one dreamed that these would be succeeded in turn by Nero, Caligula, Commodus and their fellow butchers.
 Yet all these things came to pass, and the greatest and noblest repub. lie of time sunk, as we have said, in- to a so debadched and infamous des potism that men tremble to read it's bloody history. The cause was the aggregation of enormous fortunes by government favoritism The Romans conquered and plundered every nation on the earth and trans ferred it's spoil tn Rome. where it went to create a great and powerful plutocracy, not plutoeracy created by industry, intelligence, patriotism and honesty, but plutocracy of enervated nobles, who could no longer bear the weight of the ar nor of the old soldiers of the Re public; a plutocracy of spoilers oi conquered cities and provinces, and under the corrupting and eneryating influences of this plutocracy, whict degraded the politics, the society and the manhood and debased tht womanhood of the republic, Rome routed into Caesarism.
 But the Roman system of creat ing a plutocrrey by favoritism wa infinitely more honorable and manl, than that which has been adopted by the Republican party in thi country. Rome spoiled hostile 0