Las Vegas daily optic. [volume] (Las Vegas, N.M.) 1880-1908, 1896-08-31
OUR COURSE ENDORSED.
Hon. b. 8. Rodey, of Albuquerque,
States the Position the Repub-
lican Party Should Occupy.

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should occupy In this campaign, and
here 1t is, but you must excuse the hur-
ried manner in which 1t is thrown
together;
First, let me say that there is a mighty
wide gu.f between bi-metallism and
democracy. A republican bi-metallist
is also a steadfast prvtectionist, and it
is utterly impossible for such an person
to support a platform containing a free
trade plank. Then, again. every re-
publican protectionist knows that be-
cause OF the splendid social condition
Of labor in the United States, as COM
pared with other countries, bi-metal-
lism. even though adopted by all the
world, would be u%nayailing in the
United States unless aided by a
thoroughly American protective tariff.
1t is submitted that no thinking man
can dispute this.
Independent and unipfuenced views
on the money question surely ought to
prevail in a Territory where the citizens
have no vote in the election of q
president, and no effective voice in the
adoption, maintenance or rejection of
any national policy. Then, when this
is so, why should a good republican,
because he is friendly to silver, cut his
party traces when his party platform
contains SO many good planks, even if
does contain a single plank that he
cannot agree withP Is a single mis-
take OF ones party enough to forever
divorce him from FTP Were this so, the
democratic party would have ceased to
exist, long ago, for it has been but a
continuous mistake since before the
war.
I believe that there are two things
without which the United States cannot
maintain its supremacy among the
nations of the earth as the M nation
where labor is not entirely slavery.
They are a protective tariff that pro-
tects. l mean by that, thu protects
both against the emigration to this
country Of pauper labor, and the I'M
p~ortation of its product, and the free
and unlimited coinage of silver al the
ratio of 16 to 1, with the consent of
other nations, ii that consent will come
for the asking, but, If not, then by the
United States alone! This Territory
needs those two things, and one more,
STATEHOOD. This plstform, "Protec-
ton, Bi-metallism and Statehood" is
the platform of THE OPTIC, and it is
the true one for us here, in my humble
opinion.
Great national parties, when proper.
ly managed, can do a great deal of
good, and when badly managed, can
do a great deal of harm. Small poliLi-
cal parties seldom serve any purpose,
save to unsettle things and prevent
the adoption of the wisest measures.
The republican party has made few
mistakes, and those that ii has made,
have been the work of the interlopers
within its ranks, rather than of the party
itself, for it is made up of the best peo-
pie of this nation, the great middle
class patriots, who are conservative
and slow to act, but whose sense of
honor never permits the welfare of the
country to be trampled under foot for
any great length Of time. 1t is these
interlopers who so arrange things that
neither great party adopts exactly the
right platform. Now. wise men can all
see that a protective tariff and bi.
metallism are the proper things for the
welfare Of this country. Under exist
ing conditions In the world to-day,
those two things are natural concomit-
ants for the United States, and the
gold standard and free trade are the
things that belong naturally to-
gether, if this country is not to hold its
laborers in a higher scale OF civilian
ton than any other nation. With
protection In n platform and BIZ
in the other, the voting
gets mixed, and the
chsnces are, that a complete reyolu
ton does not take place, and thus the
OF plutocracy is prolonged.
Plutocracy has no patriotism ; it's vul
lures live upon the mountain tops of
In Berlin, Paris, Londoo
or New York, it is equally at home.
No national lines of demarkation bound
it. LIS medium of power is money and
BY 1t. it controls reichstags, chambers
81, deputies. parliaments, presidents
and congresses. 1t never carries a gun
protect any nation; it puts vulgar
patriotism in the school books for the
masses to learn; and yet the great
American people, with the all. power
'ul ballot In their possession, permit
sort u thing. This nattiioonn 5 Just
what its people make 1t, and if they
ire being reduced to slavery, it is their
'wn fault. This country and its insti-
are good enough for me; it is
he best on earth and I love it with all
he undying love that a man must have
Who has sense enough to make a com.
of 1t with other nations.
The Morgans and the Havemeyers,
Who loot the treasury and bride both
political parties, are the real danger
n this country. They are the anarch-
SITS whom the country has to fear, not
be great las of patriotic working
men. They il is who secure q malad-