The Hocking sentinel. [volume] (Logan, Ohio) 1871-1906, 1896-09-24
REVOLT OF PLUTOCRACY.

| -
| No single issue ever raised in the his
tory of American politics exceeds in
importance that of opening our mints
and redeeming our currency from the
control of those foreign and domestic
corporations which seek to infict on us
as permanent system their usurpation
of the sovereign power of issuing and
regulating the circulating medium. The
only single evil greater than corpora
ton control of the taxing power is this
of corporation control of the currency.
| 1t is greater because when the people
| are robbed, whether by direct or in
direct taxation, the results quickly ap-
pear. But when the robbery is carried
on through contraction of cash and the
imitation of corporation credit paper,
they are brought to bankruptcy before
realizing the cause.
But great as is this issue, it is only an
incident of the present campaign. The
higher and broader issue which has
been forced is between the milliOnaires
of the country and the American peo-
pie. The entire Plutocracy is in revolt
against our system of popular cOnsti-
tutional government. So menacing a
movement of class against people has
never occurred before in our history
not even when the same class under the
leadership of the Biddles of the United
States Bank captured the administra-
ton of John Quincy Adams and so in
trenched themselves in control of the
tempt on the attempt made by the peo-
pie under JacksOn'S leadership to uls:
lodge them and restore popular govern-
ment. John Quincy Adams had been
elected as n Democrat, but he aban-
doned the party, repudiated the prin-
ciples to which it had pledged his ad-
ministratiOn and endeavOred to revive
the FederaliStic party whose funda-
mental maxim. as defined by Daniel
Webster himself, was that all stable
and orderly government must be based
on property. AS the fundamental tenet
of Democracy is that all just govern
ment must be based ON manhood right
and on the consent of the governed, the
masses of the Democratic party felt
the same hot resentment against the
Adams administration which they now
feel when they see Federal officeholders
controlling the action of conventions
called at the instance of Mr.. Whitney
of the Standard Oil Co. and Mr.. Bel
mont, American agent of the Roths-
child banks.
Andrew Jackson but voiced this just
resentment of the masses when in his
inaugural address he declared that it
was the right of the people to eject
from office those officials who had used
office in an attempt to dictate the re-
suit of elections. 1t was because the
people had seen Federal offices used
to control State Legislatures, to dictate
nominations, to interfere at the polls.
that Jackson denounced life-tenure in
office as foreign to the spirit of Ameri-
ca and declared that whatever the evils
of change, they were less than those of
the permanent tenure which breeds i'm
the office-holder the spirit of insolence
and of despotism. He was again the
exponent and champion of the masses
when he followed his attack on Federal
bureaucracy with IL determined as
Sault on the National bank and its con-
troll of the Treasury and of Congress.
For this he was denounced in New York
City and Boston as no other American
President had ever been denounced be-
fore. But he did not swerve. With a su-
preme confidence in the people and in
his own integrity, he forced the fighting,
keeping the aggressive always and not
stopping to defend himself. until over
whelming victory showed that no man
who really represents the cause of pop
ular freedom need fear to appeal to the
masses for support of the principles on
which their freedom and progress de-
pend.
On the issue as it was then presented.
appeal has once more been made to the
people. The plutocracy has once more
usurped control of the government.
Democracy has once more been be-
trayed. Once more the millionaires of
the country are in the field openly as
serting that property has Il divine right
to rule manhood and that it is treason
to deny it. They have drawn their
lines of class and caste and drawn
them hard. Those of them who once
called themselves Democrats do so no
longer. They call the Democracy of |
Jefferson and Jackson. as they do the |
Republfcanism of Lincoln, an evil |
thing. They say that the rule of the |
people is anarchy and they threaten |
the country with the worst they can
do against it unless they are allowed to
name the next President and put |
Messrs. Hanna and Morgan, Whitney |
and Belmont in control at Washington
as their agents. But they cannot win.
There is not mOney-there are not rifles
and cannon enough in America or i'll the
world to impose plutocracy on America
as permanent condition. Against |
plutocracy and class government the
Democratic party has made its zap
peal to Caesarw And in America there |
is no king but Caesar and no Caesar
but the people.-St. Louis Post-Dis-