The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1896-08-13
CRAFTSMANSHIP AND DEMAG0GY.
slnistsr Opposition to Changes Which Effect
Justice and Diifuse Prosperity.

OHDOoiliuu w NhNhENo UhASh ANAANNN
Justice and Diiluse Prosperity.
They call that man a statesman
whose ear ls tuned tc catch the
slightest pulsatlons of a pLcketbook
and denounoe as a demagogue any
one who dares to listen to the heart
beat of humanlty.-William ], Bryan, in
House of Representatives.
Eternal truth gives to this epigram
its telling force truth that shines
brightly from the records of men at all
times since the people were given share
in government truth which may be
discovered today in the columns of
rabid newspapers that denounce as
anarchists and demagogues the men
now enlisted with democracy in the bat
tie against plutocracy. Always in the
history of the world the men who have
attacked the possessors of special privi-
leges, the leaders who have ranked hui
manity higher than wealth, have met
the charge of demagogy. Cromwell
and his followers were demagogues in
the estimation of the lords and gentle
men of England, and the cavalier of
that time ridiculed the closely cropped
head of the Puritan much as the brilliant
journalist of today entertains himself,
if not his readers, with shafts of wit
aimed at the flowing hair and whiskers
of what he is pleased to describe as the
typical free silverite. Hirsute fashions
change, but the style Of argument en-
ployed to defend an indefensible cause
is the same in all ages, Jefferson met
bravely the reproach of demagogy when
as a member of the Virginia house of
burgesses he checked, as he believed
for all time, the development of an
American aristocracy by prohibiting
laws in recognition of entail and
primogeniture. The world has never
harbored more conspicuous demagogues
than William Lloyd Garrison and
Wendell Phillips, nor in the crisis of
today are the Tory merchants Of Boston
more harmoniously united in antago-
nism to the men who are fighting for the
freedom of all labor than were they in
1858 to those who preached from dingy
printing offices and on street corners
the revolutionary doctrine that black
men should not be enslaved.
How many of our politicians have
enjoyed sudden apotheosis and become
statesmen by virtue of their quick at
tention to the pulsation of a pocket
book Is it worth while to enumerate
them ? Have the masses of the people
of New York yet forgotten how sud
penly the wealthy classes who had for
years vituperated and denounced David
B. Hill became his fervent adulators
and hailed him as the greatest exponent
of true democracy when he rose in the
United States senate as the chief OPP
ponent of the income tax? The present
high esteem of Thomas @. Platt is
typical it covers the whole case. He
is a spoils politician, the builder and
the operator of corrupt political ma
chine. By his control of country
Legislators he misgoverns New York
City at his pleasure. He invades the
rights and liberties of the citizens,
enriches his own son by shrewdly
devised scheme of legislation, and for
years has stood as the type of all that
the citizen who believes in honest poll
tics and good government holds abhor-
rent. Suddenly Platt is put upon q
pedestal. He is no longer described
as the ''boss" but as a statesman. By
a few days work in behalf of the gold
standard at the st. Louis convention
he has blinded the eyes of all the pos
SCISSORS of special privilege to his record
and to his political character. His sins
are forgotten. He has done penance to
| the pocketbook and is absolved.
This distinction between the dema.
gogue and the statesman is no more
sharply drawn now than it has been IL
earlier times and in other nations
Golden was demagogue when he
forced free trade upon England, and
now the followers of Cobdens's s economic
school are ready to denounce as dema
gogues those who would enforce bi
metallism on the financial system o.
Great Britain. In an unethical agt
selfshness is the antmating sentimen
of mankind, and it is but natural tha
those who profit by conditions as they
exist should denounce in unmeasuret
terms those who would change sucl
conditions, even though the change
effect justice and dihuse prosperity.
The men who are enlisted this yea
on the side of the great uncountet
millions striving for justice and TO
wider measure of freedom may vel
bear with indifference the reproache
of their adversaries. They stand il
good company, for the most shining
names of history became immortal il
} the face of just such obloquy as the,
have now to bear. The statesmen