The Lexington dispatch. [volume] (Lexington, South Carolina) 1870-1917, 1896-04-08
II. HARMAN, Editor and Publisher.
STAND 70 YOUR coLo2S.

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MIR. j. ". Dreher takes issue with
the Dispatch in reference to the arti-
Gle published last week urging the
Democrats to be true to themselves.
true to their party and true to their
State in the coming campaign. Not
one word was said in that article
against the free coinage of silver; to
the contrary, however, it advised the
silver Democrats to make the fight
for the reconciliation of the white
metal wholly within the party
lines as the means by which victory
would crown their efforts, and was the
only one giving any assurance OF even
reasonable hope of success. None
but the most rabid, insane and vision
ary advocate of silver could have
taken exceptions at our remarks
against silver, because we SAID
nothing, and we submit as matter
of fact, they are unworthy tc be
leaders Of the people because they
are unsafe, unreliable, and, like tie
weathercock, liable to change with
every shifting wind. We can, to save
argument and for other satisfactory
reasons, conscientiously concede that
the financial question will be the lead
Ing issue in the coming campaign,
and that the denomination OF silver
has much. to do with the depression
under which the people are suffer-
lag. But that is not the question at
issue.
The question is, whether it is hon
orabls to go into party organization
the Democratic party, if you please,
participate in its deliberations, and
because defeated upon one issue, re-
puaiate It's action aud, by afiliation
with another party, strive to defeat
the measures adopted by the party
in whose action they were in honor
bound to support by reason OF their
participation in the deliberation OF
the partye We contend thatit is not,
and no amount of sugar coated ex-
cuses can make it so. Of all the in
consistent positions of Ben Tillman
on political questions, the most glar-
ingly inconsistant is his advice to
his friends to participate in Demo
cratic State convention, elect dele
gates to National convention with
the asowed purpose of boiling in the
event that the latter convention re-
fuses to accede to the demands OF
the silver men. The time is not so
far in the distance as to have passed
from the memory of even the most
forgetful when the walls of Ben
. Tillman's most abusive wrath were
uneorked in bitter denunciation
against Col. Haskell and those of the
household of his political faith for
boiling the Democratic nomination in
1890, and every silver Democrat in
the State shouted amen, we, as well
as Mr.. Dreher, being among the
number. The whiligig of time has
made another revolution and we find
Mr. Tillman giving the identical adj
vice to his political supporters that
he so righteously but SO scathingly
rebuked in 1890. If it was a crime
for the Independents to bolt the
party in State politics that year, it isa
greater crime, a more graver political
blunder for the Reformers to bolt
the National party in 1895, because
the consequences of that bolt are
more far reaching and more disastri-
GUS in their results as larger num-
ber OF people will be effected than
In the former instance.
Again, what results favorable to the
free coinage of silver can be accom-
plished by bolt? Parties are not
born into existence from obscurity into
controlling power in the admins
tration of the affairs of government
in day. It takes years Of the most
laborious labor and the wisest states
manship to win the fealty of the
people from one party and pledge
their allegiance to new party, if it
is ever accomplished. This being the
case, how, in the name of common
sense, do the advocates of free silver
hope to carry the election by tying
to an unknown and as yet unnamed
party whose only tangible assurance
of success is the assertion of Senator
Tillman that he has ''seen light in
the west" We appeal to the intell
gence of every reader of current
events to say whether or not if this
is not absolutely the only assurance
Of success that the silver Democrats
have been given for doing what they
know to be wrong, degrading and