Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-10-17
ASYLUM FOR DEMOCRACY
Whereof Gen. John M, Palmer
Is the Provost
is RAZED BY RlDlCULE
Senator Morgan Turns the Search-Lght of
lis Intellect and Experience Upon
the Sham Structure.

HO loilONlliS lCLltl lIOlll Aotiol'i AhOi-
gan will be read with much interest:
Washington, d. c.. Oct. IA, 1896.
Mr.. j. A. Rountree, President and Gen
eral Manager State Herald, Birming-
ham, Ala
Dear Sir; / regret that l could not meet
you when at home recently, and talk over
the situation with you in respect of the
alleged fusion between the republicans
and Palmer democrats to carry the con-
gressional elections in Alabama.
In following General Palmer it is not
far to go to reach the heart of the repub-
lican party, but it must be a fatal jour
ney to a democrat. General Palmer, it is
true, was elected to the senate by demo-
Gratis, assisted by two populist members
of the Illinois legislature, who voted for
him as a firm friend of the free coinage
of gold and silver, but his recent course
on that subject is only one of the incl
dents of a course that has led him into
the republican ranks whenever that par
ty had any rewards to offer him. In his
principles, as indicated by his votes, he
is as much at home In the republican
party as Mr.. Mckinley is, and more at
ease, since he opposed silver remonetiza-
ton, while Mckinley voted for it when
ever he had the opportunity.
General Palmer has reached that state
of political perfection in which the whole
republican party, that once made him
governor of Illinois, is too corrupt Tor MS
open association, anu lWO-lhIiuS VI thS
democracy and all the populists are too
dishonest for his liberation. Mr.. Bayard,
in his recent letter firm London, refers to
the Palmer party as an asylum IN
which the true democracy can take ref
uge until the republicans can provide
better governed country for their shelter
against dshonor.
The keeper of that asylum has dis
tlnctive reputation as a provost marshal
which he won in Kentucky, and his ad-
ministration of that high office over the
Breckenrdges and the Blackburns will
give him "a firm hold on Mckinley when
he again wants a reliable agent to exc
cute the force bill, for which he and Mr..
Lodge worked so successfully IN the
house of representatives. in 1890.
Mr.. Bayard had some experience IN the
last session of congress that would
scarcely lead a grateful man to take shell
ter in the Palmer asylum, and to make
war from that fortress upon the brave
democrats who stood in the open and de-
Tended his honor and good name against
the same republicans that he is now try
ing to keep in control of the government
When the hospital beds of this asylum
are filled with sick democrats, whose
honor is stricken with nervous depres-
sion because the true democracy will not
permit them to spend other peoples mon
ey to maintain a supposed responsibility
in British circles, the sick wards will con-
tain very few who have not been driven
out by the American people, for the rea-
son that they adhere to the British the
DRY that "a public debt, owned by the
rich, Is a public blessing" That princi-
pie of government is the key, and 1t is
the only one, that unlocks the mystery
and lays open the crime of the destruc-
ton of full legal tender silver money in
1873, when it was worth per cent pre-
MUM over gold.
A permanent, untaxed, interest-bear-
ing public debt, the interest to be collect
ed from industry by the tax collector,
was the purpose of the act of 1873, and is
still the purpose of its friends. That act
Is the breeding mother of bonds, and its
filters are nurtured in the unlawful con-
trivance called the gold reserve" Great
ed by the dangerous usurpation of re-
publican secretary of the treasury.
The Palmer asylum. was erected at In
dianapolis to shelter the act of 1873, and
the Bayards and Belmonts and the Sher-
mans and the Lodges and the Flowers
and others who have been its defenders
now demand its ratification by the people
as permanent policy of the United
States
The democratic doctrine that ma
tional debt is q national evil" because 1t
grinds the people with taxation, has no
shelter in the Palmer asylum. Over the
door Of that temple Lord Macauley's hard
saying about the British people, whom he
,toved, should be written 1.-The British
UlpUDlG are ulNluGu lllo lWO tidoocS,
beasts of burden and beasts of prey" and
the great provost of the asylum should
proclaim as he does, that the American
s,eople are to be included in that arrange
.nent Of "classes" and masses --"beastS
Of burden" devoured by beasts of prey"
1t is not necessary to discuss the effect
upon mans democracy when he pre-
tends to take hospital bed in the Pal
mer asylum, but turns 1t into war cas-
tie and attacks the democratic party from
To-, to,
settled by an act of self-destruction, and
leaves no inquiry for coroner's inquest
Another question of deeper meaning to be
settled with posterty, in Alabama, by
these pretended refugees. Can these men,
in the name of the democracy, or of the
white race, in Alabama, send representa-
tives to congress TO SUPPORT THE
ADMINISTRATION OF MIR. MKIN-
LEY UPON HIS RECORD OF SPEECH
ES, RULINGS AND VOTES ON THE
LODGE-FORCE BILL, OR UPON THE
DEMOCRATIC LAW that forbids the use
of the standing army, at the polls, or
elsewhere, as POSSE COMITATUS?
A political party may. forgive even a
mortal sin, like that, andsstill hold power
through the cohesion of public plumbers
and these refugees in the Palmer asylum
may become hereafter as powerful in
political circles and as respectable as
Mark Hanna
But the people of Alabama will make
record of history against them on the
tablets of their hearts that will be read
by them with pallid lips. 1t will be that
they, from motives of revenge for sup
posed political injustice, in refusing to
give to them arbitrary power in the DEM
ocratic party, or to soothe disappointed
ambition, have betrayed their race with
all it's hopes and its splendid history into
the hands of their cruel and relentless
enemies. Their inconsistency is a trivial
matter when compared with their power
to work evil in the state and corruption in
the blood of the people. When they
plunge into this vortex their loss is as
nothing when compared with the ruin of
civil society and government.
1t is the solid south" that Palmer says
he wants to break up, and all the tenants
of his asylum cry, $50 mote it be!'
What part of the solid south would
they destroy; If 1t Is not the racial blood
that makes the south solid? Where will
Palmer begin and where will he end, in
his work of destruction of the souths
soldity? Common sense and universal
experience teach us that the wedge that
will drive the south asunder will be
driven by the hand of fanaticism into the
Of ,,yhtt 60, to,