Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1896-07-13

cause and bctray their own convlct,o,,
'hat the money they propose to force
upon the people will not be accented
by the people.
Again, the men who drafted the Chi
cago platform are not content to ston
with silver. They demand that tho
power to issue notes be taken from
,he banks. and that all paper money
snail pc issued by the treasury dcpart.
hheht. This Is greenbackism. puro
ana simply, revived years after the rag
bapy was supposed to be dead and
buried. "'iu
VI equally grave and ominous i'm
port Is the implied purpose to ignore
ali democratic principle and tradition
anu SO change the supreme court as In
SECURE reversal of the adverse in
come tax decision. No Democrat who
remembers the hitherto unvarying and
conservative policy of the Democratic
party with reference to our highest
court, need be reminded of the danger
Gus significance of the income tar
plank in this PopuIistic platform
which has been promulgated in the
name of Democracy.
| Equally dangerous is the PROPOSE
ton that courts shall be stripped Of
authority and be rendered powerles,
| TO protect themselves or enforce the
| laws. 1t is not Democratic, but an
archistic, to oppose the use of lawful
authority in suppressing riot. in pro-
tectlng life and property. or in MAIN
tanning respect for the federal govern
ment, whether represented by its
mails or the exercise of any other
proper function. The plain purpose of
the federal interference plank is to give
an endorsement to Altgeld and to ad-
minister rebuke to Cleveland for sup
pressing the Chicago riot-a purpose
so plain and outra geous that it will re-
ceive, as it deserves, the condemnation
Of all law-abiding citizens
The Chicago platform contains
enough, and more than enough, to con-
denim it utterly, without reference to
the silver plank; but when we come to
that remarkable exposition we have
the browning achievement of stupid-
ity, mendacity and false reasoning.
No cause was ever before set forth in a
declaration so packed with what is
most untrue and most unreasonable.
1t Is not true, as any school boy NAV
learn, that the constitution provides
what materials shall be employed as
money. 1t is not true that the act Of
1873 demonetized silver for silver had
been demonetiZed and had disappeared
by common consent more than two de-
cades before. The act merely recog-
nized as fact that which had already
taken place, and substituted a dollar
which it was hoped might circulate
for a dollar that was not
at all. Everyone knows that
K is not true that the gold standard
locked fast the prosperity of an in
lustrial people in the paralysis of hard
times" Every one, whether Democrat
ar Republican, Populist or silverite.
knows that this country never had
greater prosperity than it had from
The resumption of gold payments in
1879 down to the time when the en-
forced purchase of silver had caused
imminent danger of the replacement
IF the gold by the silver standard in
1898. AS stupid and contemplate as
his sort of misrepresentation is. it is
by the assertion that the
gold standard. adopted and held fast
~ all commercial nations. is a British
policy. 1t would be as sensible as to
oppose steam and electricity because
he English make use of Them and the
$ unworthy of the most ignorant citi-
zen of this great, resourceful and indie
pendent republic. to say nothing of
such declaration standing in what
to be a platform for the De-
nocracy to stand upon.
After a careful review of the situa-
ion, realizing that the Chicago plat
'orm does not bear the slightest i'm
,ress of the leaders who have hitherto
guided the councils of the party; be-
ieving fully that free and unlimited
coinage of silver at a dishonest ratio
means unparalleled disaster; seeing
he menace there is to our institutions
II the sudden rise of the Altgclds and
he Tillmans to influence and to place
ormerly held only by the ablest
statesmen: knowing that the candidate
s acceptable to these men and to men
ike them, and that he must accept the
platform upon which he is to stand.
he Union, in no unfair or carping
pirit but as a grave matter of funda-
mental and true Democratic principle,
rejects the one and re-
udates the other There is no other