The Telegraph-courier. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1888-1946, 1896-10-15
JUDGE MORANSPEAKS
DELIVERS THE ABLEST SPEECH
HEARD HERE THIS FALL.
DEFENDED TRUE DEMOCRACY
For Two Hours and Half He Expounds
the Gold Question and Pays His
Polite Respects to the Sllver1tes.
Used No Epithets.

Without any doubt the best speech
so far delivered in this campaign was
that Of Judge Thomas A. Moran, of
Chicago, at the Rhode opera house
Monday evening under the auspices of
the Palmer and Buckner club. The
opera house was comfortably filed with
a very intelligent audience, nearly
every member of which stayed the
entire two hours and half to hear the
entire speech.
Judge Moran opened with the state
ment that in his youth and early
manhood he had been democrat and
his voice had been frequently heard IN
political campaigns in /; noisy way that
was possibly a demerit to him. In
youth party spirit is strong, but as one
grows older and judgment natures the
principles involved receive the chief
attention and the wisdom of any issue
is considered. Since his youth his
affection for his party has not been
shaken. He and his fellow supporters
of Palmer and Buckner are branCed as
traitors to the old party, assistant re-
publicans, a Mckinley aid society and
other undeserved epithets are offered
them, but he submitted to reason the
question: Who stands by the old demo-
cratic party in principles and integrity
and who has turned away, they or the
silverites?
Judge Moran said there were two
tests embodied in the question. Does
the present issue of the so called demo
cratic party represent the ancient
principles of that party, and second, Is
the present issue of the SO called demo-
cratic party wise one? He admitted
that if the free coinage Of silver as
stated in the coinage plank of the
democratic convention assembled at
Chicago is an ancient principle Of that
party, they who now uphold it may
have on that ground faint reason for
being called the true democrats today
He submitted this question to the test
of history. He went back to the very
beginning of coinage and the men who
first considered and decided the ques-
ton for the American people.
Thomas jefferson, the father of the
democratic party, when the question
was first brought up, asked the ques-
ton: What is the value OF the two
metals in all the countries with which
we exchange?" He said it WAS matter
of commercial values and not one tn be
decided by legislation without the adj
vice or consent of any other nation. In
response to such argument the ratio of
151 to l was adopted, which ratio as
nearly AS could be decided represented
the commercial values. But it hap
pened that the commercial value was
just then undergoing change. The
ratio had overrated gold and the con
sequence was that the gold was driven
out of circulation and silver came i'll.
From Jefferson the speaker came
down to Andrew Jackson and at this
place he read selections from the words
of Thomas Benton, for thirty years a
senator and a democrat, by which he
showed that Benton himself as well as
the other leading democrats believed in
the coinage Of the two metals at their
commercial value.
The speaker then showed that even
Grover Cleveland before he had been
nominated the first time for president
was opposed to such doctrines as are
now represented by the democratic
party. According to history the prin-
ciple is not an ancient democratic
principle.
Is the principle wise one? If wise
it makes no difference whether itbe old
or not. To the saying that poor wages
and beggared labor is due to the con-
tracted condition Of the currency and I
that it could all be cured by the passage
of free coinage bill, the speaker /
showed clearly that gold was measured !
BY nothing else than the human labor
required in producing and that the !
value of all commodities likewise was
measured by the same means. Up to
the time of the panic of 1893 wages had .
continually risen from 1873 when we !
first emerged from the panic of 1878. !
The prices of the farmers produce are
determined by the cost of the labor .
employed in production. The machin
cry of modern times has done away
with an immense amount of labor and |
it is not strange that the price of farm /
produce has cheapened Both ques
lions answered it appeared that those !,
who properly deserve the name OF /
democrats are those who now stand for /
Palmer and Buckner and sound money.
The speech deserves more space, as
it was valuable one, clear cut and
concise in argument and perfectly free
Sow, CIV v,oli+ionl sr,oannpcc ,