The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1896-08-27
DDURKE (0CKRAHJ NOISY DIA7RIBE
Meets With a. Just Rebuke at the Hands of
The New York Journal
In His Hopeless Despair He Brings Upon His Proud Head
the Censure and Condemnation of His
. Erstwhile Friends.

Mr.. Bourke Cochan's controversial
methods, as shown in his address of
Tuesday night, are greatly to be depre-
Gated. He confronted in Madison
Square Garden an audience which was
magnificent, not only in numbers, but
in its high degree of intelligence, In
the main it was q friendly audience
Most Of the people who gathered in the
Garden that night came as enemies of
the free coinage of silver and were pre-
pared to applaud any and all attacks
upon that financial theory. But in a
gathering of 12, 900 people there must
have been some who came to question
and to be convinced. To such Mr..
Cockrans address must have been
disappointment.
The grave importance of this ques-
ton before the American people to-
day, the effect which it's determination
will have upon the prosperity of the
nation, the wide divergence of public
opinion concerning it, and the fact that
the people are divided by it into hostile
camps of almost equal strength should
suggest to any one who enters into this
debate that patriotism, no less than
common sense, compels that discussion
should be conducted with liberation,
with fairness, with recognition of the
sincerity and the honesty of the op,
posing faction, with cool argument and
without asperity. In this contest the
side which desires only to win, without
computations as to the method of win
ming, is not the side of patriotism, To
discover what is right and what will
be we'll for the country should be the
purpose of every honest man engaged.
The duty of the advocate is not-as Mr..
Cochran seemed to think--to win in any
way or at any cost. This is not a
cause at law to which few individu
ais are parties, but debate upon a
great question of public polity, in the
settlement of which every citizen is
peculiarly interested.
For this reason it is deplorable that
Mr.. Cochran should have adopted the
methods of the jury pleader to awaken
the preiudices of his hearers and to
enforce his points. 1t was neither nee
essary, wise nor decent for him to per-
sistently describe the Chicago ticket
and the Chicago platform as populistic.
He knows, as we all know, that the es-
sence of democracy is the expression
of the will Of the majority of the peo-
pie, and that the Chicago convention
expressed the will of o majority of
the democrats of q great majority of
the states of the union. He knows that
no democratic candidate has opened a
canvass levelled against the founda-
tions of social order, " and it was some
thing worse than demagogy for him to
make such an assertion. If he have
true comprehension of the gravity of
the issue involved in this campaign, and
of the almost religious fervor with
which great and an eminently patri-
otic portion of the electorate is now
studying it, Bourke Cochran must un-
derstand that sneers, however biting,
are not to take the place of reasoned
truth in its determination. Standing as
the representative of noE-partisan
movement in behalf of a certain form
of currency, addressing an audience
made up largely of republicans, against
whom for years on other issues he has
directed his eloquence, he should have
recognized the folly of using party
1 designation to coniure with. To call
the Chicago platform "populistic' does
not dispose of it. 70 declare that he
himself represents only true democra-
cy does not prove the point. To pro-
nounce the issue of the campaign zone
of morals, morality or honesty" does
not show how either morality or homes
ty is advanced by the gold standard
To describe the great forces of western
thonght behind the free coinage move
ment as made up of professional farm
ers who labor with their jaws" and tC
assert that the south, which sent sole
free silver delegations to Chicago is il
the hands of 'unreconciled slave-hold
ers who would like to pay no wages,
is to confess ignorance of the trend o
public thought in this nation and tt
deny to two great sections of the coun
try the possession of sufficient intelli
gence or enough patriotism to iustif!
them in self-government.
If we shall set aside the purely abus
i've features of Mr.. Cockran's speecl
as unworthy of detailed comment an,
certainly unworthy of him-we find tn
first mooted question which he attacke,
with argumentthe alleged desire Of th
democracy to recognize the suprem
court in the interest Of an income tax