The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-07-05


our party meets in this spirit, anxious
to rally under the old flag all of its old
soldiers, and to win recruits from every
section, and ready to accord freedom
of speech and action, we have gath
cred here tonight to make
OUR APPEAL FOR UNION;
and we of the north and east plead
for the very life of our party. 1t would
be folly to overlook the gravity of the
crisis, but it would be a cowardly act
to abandon hope, and undemocratic to
assume that our appeal will fall upon
deaf ears. Our great national party
fears no contest except within its own
ranks; it cannot die except oy suicide.
1t has been and is the peoples party,
fighting for their cause against selfish
sectional and class interests which con-
troll the Republican party. Within its
ranks thus far there has been no
room, thank God, for sectional preju-
dice, proscriptive bigotry, control by
selfish interests, or any influence which
would divide us on geographical, re-
ligious or class lines
Rights, not favors, the people, not
classes; our country not its sections,
are the maXims of our Democratic
crees.
Has the time come when we are
ready TO surrender the cardinal princi-
pies of faith, to reverse the established
policy of our party; to look to pa
ternal government to add value to any
commodity in the interest of class or
section, and as the result of such
folly, to
DESTROY THE NATIONAL CHAR
ACvTFR
of a broad and tolerant Democracy?
We are not ready to surrender to Re-
publican protection and throw that
mantle over silver, its discarded child,
nor to abandon our position as the
peoples party to become, like the Re
publicans, as a party of class and of
section.
For the first time in it's history, Fhe
Democratic party is urged to make
the cardinal principles of its faith and
the leading issue of its campaign sill
yer mOnometal1ism, new and deprec-
lated standard of value.
The demand is for free coinage of
silver at 16 to 1, which means that the
power and force of government are to
be invoked to change our unit of value
and to substitute fifty cents of silver
for dollar in gold and then to adj
just the business of the country, all
wages, earnings and savings, all debts
and credits, all public obligations and
the national honor to this deprecated
standard. The demand comes from
section and class, and appeals to a
paternai government to give value
where none exists. Is this demand
A SOUND DEMOCRATIC PRINCE
PIE?
Does it accord with the teachings and
record of our party, with the faith of
Jefferson and Cleveland, with its I'M
fiinching position always in favor of
sound and hard money, with its oppo-
sition to paper legal tender and Sher-
man silver bills, with it's constant, I'M
dying struggle against paternalism and
protection, and its proud boast of be-
ing the peoples party, broad as the
nation, controlled by no class or sec
ton of selfish interest?
May the delegates here gathered to
proclaim our old Democratic faith put
this question to their conscience be-
fore they plunge us into neresy and
schism. l assert that this demand of
a section Of our party is a new and
radical DEPARTURE; that it is in conflict
with the vital principles for which we
have successfully fought; that it re-
pudiates our past Democratic plat
forms and administrations; that logi-
cally it is Republican principle and
REPUBLICAN POL
ICY;
and, that it is fraught with peril to
our country and disaster to our party.
Never yet has this demand been
plank in any national Democratic plat
form. 1t was expressly repudiated in
the convention of 1876, and thereafter
abandoned.
No power under heaven ever has es-
tablished and maintained, or ever can,
a bimetallic standard at a ratio where
one coin is given its intrinsic value. To
make fifty cents worth of silver by
force of government equal to dollar
in gold will, by inexorable laws of ma
ture, over which government is pow
erless, drive out gold, contract our cur
rency, depreciate our standard, unset
tie business, impair credit, reduce all
savings and the value of all wages
And the masses of the people will be
the heaviest losers and the greatest
sufferers.
1t is the old principle and experience
of protection over again, the power Of
government used to give value and
wealth for the benefit of the few, to
the burden and expense of the many
Surely this principle has no place in
our Democratic creed.
NO WONDER.
No wonder this new doctrine stag
gers some of US who have been stead
tasty loyal to a political faith we love.
1t would force US to repudiate the SOL
emn professions we have made in
many a Democratic convention, to
reverse the honorable record of
our party in many a struggle for
sound and stable currency, and then
administration which. with courage
and fidelity, has upheld the nations
credit and honor and saved US from
disaster ard disgrace. This new doc
trine, Republican in principle, is in
line with past Republican polity. only
lust discarded in the hope that the
Democratic party may be deluded into
putting on Republican cast-off things.
Every law which for generation has
threatened the stability of our national
currency and credit has come in Re
publican administrations. Greenbacks,
imitation, silver-all are the children of
Republican rule, and now it has nomi-
mated as it's candidate one whose re-
cord is more shaky than it's own and
whose cowardly silence is ominous to
future trade and, commerce. Can our
party Of today, with any sincerity, or
upon any Democratic policy. follow in
these Republican footsteps? Can it
hope for any success in repudiating its
own honorable record? Can it
EVEN MAINTAIN IT'S HONOR
and it's life in this departure from it's
own faith?
1 am not here to utter any threat of
a section of our party. I have no inter-
est to serve. Every Democrat, true to
his faith and conscience, must deter