The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1896-08-08

the middle men and consumers OF the
East He was known as an assailant of
the national banks and of the banking sys
TEN, of the manufacturers and the indus
tries which they directed and through
which employment was given to lab or, and
he has a record in nearly every speech which
he has made, since first coming into promi-
nence SIX years ago. OF using the class cry,
with all the effects which could be given to
it by the arts or oratory, in order to win
votes for the cause which he was advocat-
ing and to secure public Office in his own
| interest.
In his recorded speeches in Congress, Mr..
Bryan used freely the same demagogi
cal appeal. Suggestions of it run through
almost all of his remarks on the floor of the
House of Representatives. The poor were
consistently contrasted with the rich, the
debtor with the creditor. The one was
lauded as a patriot the other pilloried as a
robber. The class issue was raised in the
earliest speech which Mr. Bryan delivered
in the House of Representatives-that upon
the Tariff, where he declared that twenty
five thousand people owned one-half of the
wealth of the country and siXty-tive million
people divided the other half between
them, and where he declared that the
manufactures were dDle 10 CtleDldte ulltlT
cause at $40 a plate in the banquet hall,
when within stones throw were peo
pie to whom 10-cent meal would be
luxury" His speech upon the income tax
was replete with appeals of a similar chara-
tel. In it he declared that free government
cannot long survive when the thousands
enjoy the wealth of the country and
the millions share its poverty in com.
his speech of August rs, 1898, ''you hear
among the rich an occasionally expressed
contempt for popular government, and
among the poor protest against legisla-
ton which makes them toll that others may
reap. appeal to you to restore justice
and bring back prosperity while yet a
peaceable solution can be secured.
And in the same speech he declared that
the masses opposed the repeal of the Sher-
man act, and said This question can
not he settled by typewriter recommen.
dations and suggestions made by boards of
trade and sent broadcast over the United
States. 1t can only be settled by the great
mass of the votes of this country who stand
like the rock of Gibraltar for the use of gold
and silver" And in his peroration he de-
clared that the Democratic party stood
against ''the corporate interests of the
nation, its mOneyed institutions, its
aggregations of wealth and capital, imper-
ious, arrogant, cOmpassionless They de-
mand special legislation, favors, privileges
and immunities. On the other hand stand
that unnumbered throng which gave a name
to the Democratic party and for which it
has assumed to speak. WOrkworn and
dust -begrimed, they make their sad appeal.
They hear of average wealth increased on
every side, and feel the inequality of its
distribution"
'LITrLE SHORT or ArDACITY.
1t is little short of audacity in Senator
Faulkner, as Chairman of the Democratic
Congressional Committee, to express an
hypocritical fear that the campaign before
it ends will develop into a contest between
the masses and the aggregated wealth of
the country. 1t is even more disingenuOus
to attribute the cause of the tendency to the
opposition to free coinage There has come
no appeal to wealth as wealth from those
who are standing firmly for the mainten-
ance of the national credit and for the pro-
lection OF the great trusts committed into
their hands. The appeal to class prejudice
in the present campaign began with the
earliest ambition of Mr.. Bryan for politi-
cal prominence is marked feature of all
his speeches, and was emphasized in the
platform on which he stands, and is still
further accentuated in the Populst plat
form which he silently indorses and which
is supporting prop of his candidacy
throughout the West With the fewest
possible exceptions, every journal which is
urging its readers to vote for Bryan and
Sewall is devoting Il large portion of its space
to giving publicity and emphasis to the
charge that the ''plutocrats of the East"
are the opponents of free silver aud that
the toiling masses of the South and West
are its strongest advocates.
Senator Faulkner and his committee are
doing their best to push this issue to the
front through the distribution of speeches
made in Congress in which such an issue is
either asserted or limited at 1t is the same
issue that was attempted to he raised in the
struggle against flat money, when the same
men who are now clamoring for IA debased
dollar insisted that the wealth of the country
was combined to prevent the issue of
irredeemable obligations of the Government
The clamor had some effect in that cam.
paign, but the sober sense of the American
people saw through the appeals of the de-
magOgues and defeated the attempt to de.
stroy the national credit. There is every
reason to believe that the same result will
he attained in the present campaign before
t1,a tnta tod la,,