Birmingham state herald. (Birmingham, Ala.) 1895-1897, 1896-08-30

and these neighbors repudiated his ac-
ton and refused to support the ticket
and platform put out at Chicago. He in
quired as TO their places of meeting and
found out that the first meeting had been
held at the opera house in Montgomery,
where
Tho Boilers of 1892
first met, and their second and final
meeting had been a LakeView, where the
first conspiracy to deliver the electoral
vote of Alabama to the republican party
had been consummated What a blight
ing similarity, when we remember that
the boilers profess to be the only disciples
of the true principles of democracy. Re-
membering the men with whom he acted,
he was reminded of the couplet quoted
by the temporary chairman of the con-
Vention:
"There was Great Britain in martial array,
But there was old kentucky"
Who were the in concert with whom he
had acted at that great convention?
There were the superb Daniel of Virginia.
Walsh and the Howells of Georgia, Bank
head and Kellar and Parks and Lane of
Alabama, the learned George, the bril-
liant Walthall and Money of MISSISSIPPI,
Blanchard of Louisiana, Reagan, Chiffon
and Culberson of Texas, Jones and berry
and Taylor and Little of Arkansas, Har-
ris and Bate and Richardson, the great
chairman, of Tennessee; Wat Hardin and
great Joe Blackburn of Kentucky and
Cockrell and Vest and Stone of Missouri
men who for thirty years had been
leaders of the political and moral thought
of the south and under whose teachings,
with those of the great and glorious Nor
gan, he had learned the eternal lesson of
true democracy.
Were these men anarchists? If so, he
acknowledged the soft impeachment and
confessed himself one of their fellows.
He had read and seriously studied the
objections made to the Chicago plat
form and was prepared to prove that
every plank in that platform was in en-
tire accord with the previous declara-
tions of party principles and he hazard
ed nothing in the assertion that had the
word gold run through that platform
as a scarlet thread did through every
rope and haWser of the British navy, we
would never have heard that the plat
form contained an insult that 1t does
not contain to the president; the dis
covery that 1T assaulted the supreme
court, which 1t does not assault. would
never have been made; the announce
ment that it sought government control
Of railroads, which 1t does not seek,
would never have been made; the denun-
citation of it's opposition to government
by injunction would never have been ut
tered; had our friends, the enemy, read
the platform of 1884, when Grover Cleve-
land was first nominated, they would not
have denounced the rivers and harbors
clause, identical in language; the read
ing of the platform shows that tariff re-
form is not abandoned, but preserved.
He defied any man claiming to be a dem
ocrat to say he was in favor of the un-
lawful and arbitrary interference by the
national government in local affairs. The
bank clause was in entire harmony with
The Policy of Jackson
and the platform of 1880, which declared
for the gold and silver coinage of the
constitution and paper money, converti-
BILE into coin. The contract clause re-
fused to permit any man to diScredit the
constitutional money, but allowed him
to contract for payment in any commod-
ity, even gold. In fact, there were but
two clauses brought about by the condi-
ton of our country and demanding set
tlement, and these were the railroad
plank and the opposition 10 government
by injunction. The railroad commission
was powerless today, and the platform
simply proposes to give them power. and
contains no hint of government owner
ship, and the opposition to government
by injunction simply is in protest against
the common custom of the aggrandise-
ment of power by the federal judiciary;
the opposition to life tenures in office is
aimed not at the. life tenures of the con-
stitution, but against the creation of
privileged class of offieeholders, and Is an
affirmance of the democratic doctrine of
rotation in office. These planks, how
ever are as nothing compared with the
declaration of the platform for the free
coinage of silver, rather for bimetal-
lism. This is the very height and front
OF our offending. The other planks not
discussed are admittedly democratic, and
therefore, he said, the platform at Chi
eago was but an expression of party
creed as epitomized by Jefferson.
He asserted without fear of successful
contradiction that the free and unlimited
nj of nd ci al
ratio of l to 16 has been the democratic
doctrine since the foundation of the gov
ernment He challenged the production
of a sentence from any democratic news
paper or a paragraph from any demo-
era tic speaker prior to 1890 which had
failed to denounce the crime of 1878 and
to demand the restoration Of the free
coinage of silver What had converted
our friends since that time? Had the
platform contained a declaration that
we fell down and Worship the golden
calf erected by our Aaron, don't you
know we would have no word in con-
demnation of the platform and candidate
promulgated at Chicago? Don't you
know that that wee bit of a bolt organ
ized at the opera house at Montgomery
and formulated at Lakeview has no foun-
dation, but in the fact that the men who
lead it, these brigadiers without a brig
ade, generals without an army, sovtr-
eigns without a subject, were defeated
on tnlS HIldHCldl lSSue! w III you lOlOW
them outside the party? Does not the
platform contain and sustain every doc
trine promulgated by Jefferson in his
declarat ton Of party creed? Listen to me
while / recite them:
1.-The ultimate aim of all government
is to do equal and exact justice to all
men, to establish peace; to promote COM
merce and honest friednship with all ma
tions and to form entangling alliances
with none; to secure the people and the
states in all their rights, and to pre-
serve the government in its constitution
al vigor; to exercise jealous care of the
right of elections by the people; to teach
an absolute acquiescence in the decision
of the majority; to inculcate the SUI
premacy of the civil over the military
authority; to practice economy in the
public expenses; to honestly pay the pub
Tic debt and to sacredly preserve the pub
lie faith; to encourage agriculture and
commerce as its handmade; and to pre-
serve the freedom of religion, the free
dom of the press and the freedom of the
person."
These Are tho Cardinal Doctrines
of democratic faith, and each and all of
them are faithfully conserved in the plat
form a1nptoh a at rlau he