Mexico weekly ledger., 1896-08-06
DR.. Ridpath Is For Bryan.
THE HISTORIAN sYMPATHTzEs
WITH LABORERS BUT NOT
WITH OILERS.
He Believes in Free Coinage and Says
It's Restoration is the Cause
OF the People and Must
Triumph.

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind, August 2.-Dr.
John Clark Ridpath, the we'll known
scholar, historian and writer, who was
unanimously selected by the Demo
crafts of the Fifth District as their
candidate for Congress at their con
vention in Brazil July %, was visited
at his home i'll Greencastle yesterday
and asked for an expression upon his
nomination and the monetary ques-
ton. He said:
"ln regard to my nomination for
Congress, l strove in every way /
could to avoid that and prevent it.
My personal affairs and some public
duties that lie just ahead seemed to
preclude the propriety or possibility
of my being a candidate for any office.
| never sought office in my life and
never expect to do so for the reason
that it seems to me clear that the
people have the absolute right of in
itiative in such matters. I have al
ways commended that the people should
ia nv AhitiatifO III SlOObllR tIitSc
who would become their servants in
office. The political life is not at all
in my profession, though 1 have a
profound interest in the public well
fare. L have always sympathized
with the people-by which l mean
the great mass of our fellow beings
engaged in the hard task of making a
living. sympathize with the laborer
and do not sympathize with the idler.
According to my way of thinking
u government has been steadily
drifting away from the people and
getting into the power OF special in
terests. The circle of government
has narrowed and narrowed till it APP
pears to me the height of absurdity to
call it any longer a government 'of the
people, for the people and by the
people, | want to see this process
completely reversed. L want to see
the government restored TO the peo-
pie. I believe precisely what Web
ster and Theodore Parker and Lin
coin declared, viz: That our repub-
lie is, or ought to be, a government of
the people, for the people and by
them.
GLOW can there be any harm in
a doctrine? In the name of conf
mon sense, has it come to pass that
patriotic citizens in the United States
of America cannot advocate the right
of the people to govern themselves?
Has it come to this that we have sure
enough a lot of self-constituted mas
tiers who shall tell us what is good for
us and how we shall obtain it? Are
Americans a lot of younglings who
are unable to lead ourselves, but must
be led rather as with a string and
fed on porridge as with a spoon?
"Among the methods as it seems to
me by which the government is to be
recovered by the people is, first of
all, as the matter now stands, the
of our currency. We
vi currency system put back
precisely where it was under the
and constitution for the first
80 years of our existence as a nation. |
Dur statutory bimetallic system of
currency was taken from us in 1873 by |
process which I DO not care to |
characterize in fitting terms. Now
We propose to have it back again. |
The restoration of silver money to
,he place it held before is the peoples
cause, and the people in this contest
Ire going to triumph. They are GO
ng to triumph in the open light of |
lay under the clear CLEAN of light
md truth.
SILVER DOLLAR UNIT,