Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-05-20
NOT TO BE VETOED
(Coptinued from First Page

he would not veto any coinage bill which
Congress might pass.
Mr. Platt and his kind are much alarm
ed over this strange freak of the appointed
republican candidate. He has broken
bounds. He is not to be bossed. He Is
actually squirting toward the people, with
an absurd notion that they have rights
and ought to be respected when they speak
you have the secret of Mckinleys mighty
popularity with the republican masses. He
may have mistaken opinions on more sub
jectS than one, but he believes in the peo-
pie, and knows we'll that in the long run
they will settle matters wisely. Whether
they do or not, they alone have any right
to settle them at all. If. during this in
terval of discreet silence on his part, you
desire to know his real opinion as to the
proper use of the veto, you may assume
that it is in accord with that Of the
Adamses and of Lincoln, and you will
probably find 1t stated as clearly as Mr..
Mckinley could do it himself in the second
volume of Mr.. Blaine's book, pages 3U7-309,
on the Tyranny of the Veto.
When" continued Gov. Black, did the
veto power become SO much more sacred
than any other enumerated by the Con-
stitution that political parties may not
pledge themselves or their nominees con-
corning It's use or abuse? They do with
regard to all the rest from the great power
of taxation down through the list. The
Chicago convention, the st. Louis conven-
ton and all other conventions will do so
this year just as ever before, and the can
didateS will accept their declarations with
all the implied restrictions when they ac-
cept their nominations. But when it comes
to an expression as to the proper use of
the veto upon single specific question,
about to be submitted to the people, Il GER
tain class of men and newspapers-and few
OF the latter have ever pretended to be
democratic-cry out that this is Gripping
the executive. and sacrificing some uniden-
titled principles.
The President and Party Pledges.
well, how does it cripple the executive?
Is he crippled by his party's pledges on
tariff and other matters? And what prin-
ciple is sacrificed? There Is no principle in
volved in the coinage question. There is
no doubt as to the right and power of Con-
gress to do upon it whatever the people
may wish. 1t was never made party
test or tenet. The only real principle at
stake is that great enc underlying our
whole republican system, the resistless
sovereignty of the people, or, as Jefferson
put 1t, defining the duties of magistrates
and of political parties alike, absolute &C
quiescence in the decisions of the ma jority
If Major Mckinley and his friends find it
necessary. as Mr. Plat, Senator Dubois
and others assure he does, to agree
that the majority shall rule and that no
coinage bill passed by a Congress elected
on the issue shall be vetoed. in order to
save a comparatively insignificant split in
the republican party. how much important
is a like understanding to the democratic
party, from which a bolt by either wing
would carry off millions of voters and
whole sections Of the country? A split
with us would mean what it meant in 1860
exile for generation. No man of my
age would live to see the return of the
party to power
1T seems to me, further, that those who
threa ten bolts, whether silver men or gold
men, subject their respective causes to I'M
necessary peril. Should the silver wing con-
troll the convention and the gold wing bolt,
then. for the first time, the latter would be
confronted in the eastern states by d sys-
tematic silver campaign under the regular
national democratic organization, with all
It's great and just prestige accumulated in
its hundred years of glorious history The
democratic vote for the boilers gold stand
ard ticket would be shorn down to figures
so comparatively Insignificant, as to utter
ly discredit, If not to ruin, the gold faction
so far as the democratic party is concerned
The same would happen in the silver states
should the silver men, failing to control the
convention, follow the extremists out of the
organization and into the open, where every
conscientious party man, who cares more
for the great body of democratic principles
than for Eingle temporary question, would
feel bound to respond to the call of the old
party-the body guard of the Constitution
and the bulwark of states rights-and leave
the boilers to their fate"
do you think the silver men will prevail