St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1896-03-28
M'kINLEY,s "BEsr THINGS"
Facts Which the Major Persistently
sfzte# Oyerlooks.

Overloolxs.
Mckinley 3 personal organ in this city
prints in it's loudest style some of the
best things" in that statesman s speech
at the banquet of the Marquette club
Wednesday night. We know that they
were his t'best things" because his per-
sonal organ says so, which is equiva-
lent to saying that he says 50 himself.
One Of the "best things" was this:
''The whole world knew a year in nd :.
vance of it's utterance what the repub-
1fcan platform of 1860 would be and the
whole world knows now, and has known
| for year past, what the republican
platform of 1896 will be. Then tie bat
| tie was to arrest the spread of slave
labor in America; now it is to prevent
the increase OF. lily paid and degraded
free labor in America
This serves to call attention to the
difference between the republican party
of 1860 and the republican party of 1856
"a difference which William Mckinley
seems to be quite incapable of perceiv-
ing. In 1860 the republican party stood
for freedom; in 1896 it is opposed to free
dom, and it's leaders and heroes do not
hesitate to say so, In 1896 the repub-
liean party is substantially what the
whig party was before it gave up the
ghost in 1852.
Until after its defeat that year the
whig party was the party of high tariff.
Its leading doctrine was that prosperity
n
ing the people engaged in certain in
dustries out Of the earnings of people
engaged in other industries. The dem
ocratic tariff of 1886 had exposed the.
fa1sity of that doctrine and in 1852 the
people refused to be humbugged by II
any longer and gave the whig party it's.
quietus.
In It's place arose the republican
party, which professed to be the party
Of freedom, and did not. profess to be
the party of the tariff made of slavery.
Some of it's represen tatives in congress
in 1857 reported as members of q house
committee in favor of abolishing the
whole tariff system and raising revenue
by direct taxation.
This party has ceased to be the party
of freedom. It is the party of slavery
What is slavery? It is Involuntary
seryitude. That is what a protective
tariff exacts from the mass of the peo-
pie. What is a slave? It is one who.
tolls while another enjoys the fruit Of
his toll. He who lie forced to pay out
of his earnings so or 100 per cent. more
for an article than its value as deter
mined by free competition is as truly
slave as ever was negro in a Georgia
cotton field. He is rendering involun-
tary service to the man who is enabled
by law to exact from him for the cloth
Ing he wears from so to 100 per cent.
more than it is worth. The fact may be
concealed from him by the devilish in
genuity Of his master, but it is none the
less fact.
Another of McKinley's .sbest things
was this: 'sThe republican party would
as soon think of lowering the flag OF
our country as to contemplate with
patience and without protest and OPP
position any attempt TO degrade or
corrupt the medium of exchanges
among the people. Itcan berelied upon
in the future, as in the past, to supply
the country with the best money ever
known, gold, silver and paper, good the
world over.
In the future as in the past" is par
ticularly good. 1t serves to recall the
fact that The republican party sup
piled the country with greenbacks in
1862 and the years following "a cur
rency which drove out every dollar OF
specie and became so degraded" and
corrupted at one time that it was
worth less than 40 cents on the dol
lur. And this same currency corrupted
the thinking Of the country; even that
OF the supreme courtof the United States
gave us an epidemic Of fat lunacy In
place of sound money sanity.
It serves also to recall the fact that
in 1878 the republican party forged the
endless chain which for three years
has been lifting gold out of the treas
uIy-forged it by enaeting that re
deemed greenbacks should not stay
redeemed and by enacting in another
statute that Uncle Sam should help out
the poor bonanza kings by buying and
coming their silver. It reminds us that
she republicans OF the Mckinley con-
greas went still further at the dicta-
ton of the mining g-camp despots and
passed O law which, by the admission
of their own leaders, brought on the
panic of 1898 just as their greenback
policy brought on the panic of 1873.
So McKinley's very best things serve
to impress upon us the fact that the
republican party is no longer the party
of freedom, whatever 1t may have been
in the past, and that its policy with re-
spect to the currency has always been
unWise save only when it made pro-
vision for the resumption OF specie pay
Inents in 1875 Even then ii did a vast
amount of mischief by postponing re-
sumption for four years and providing
that redemption should not redeem.
Chicago Chronicle.
Reed stiil Tongue-Tied.
Mr.. Reed continues to be tongue
tied candidate for the presidency.
What he thinks about the currency,
about the tariff, about foreign policy ],
the public does not have the faintast
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