The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1896-08-25

Letter From Yermont's Leading DEM
ocrat.
] Burlington, Vt, August 2.-The Free Press
will print tomorrow letter from Hon. Ed
ward Phelps, ex-minister to England to Hon.
| G. G. Benedict. 9a
| The letter is dated Newport, r. l., August
| %, and in part says 81 regard the pending
Presidential election as presenting the
most dangerous crisis that this country has
ever encountered. 1t does not, in my judg-
ment, involve any political controversy, nor
any question of supremacy of party for
such considerations are lost sight of in the
greater gravity of the situation. The real
issue is one upon which all patriotic men,
and all who are interested in the prosperi-
ty and welfare of the country should find
themselves upon one side, and opposed to
q common enemy.
''The attack that we have to resist is not
upon the policy, but upon the life of the
nation. For they would take its life, who
destroy the means by which it lives-the
business of many thousands and the indus
try of millions.
ut proposes to repudiate the great part of
the national debt, to destroy the protection
we enjoy under the Supreme Court of the
nited States, to restrain the arm of the
national executive from the punishment of
witnesses to violate the obligations and
sanctity of existing contracts, and to re-
strict the freedom of private contracts in
the future. 1t seeks in short, to breakdown
the dykes which the constitution and the
law of the land have raised for the defence of
the common interests and welfare and to
let it in upon us the seething and polluted
flood of communism, mob law, bankruptcy
and anarchy which is the chief object Of
all civilized governments to exclude.
s'The only men who can profit by the sue
cess of this crusade are plutocrat silver mine
owners, already rich beyon the dreams of
avarice, who have set it on foot and dill
gently propagated it, and their followers,
who, if it prevails, will get into office by its
means.
"The rest of us will be common sufferers
in the general ruin. There are those, strange
as it may seem, who are concurring in the
views have tried to present, but are still
considering whether adhesion to the exist
ing organization of the Democratic party is
not more important than the salvation of
public interests.
ed on the issue presented. On the one side
are the old-time honored principles of the
party and its most trusted statesmen and
leaders, and very large proportion of its
better and most instructed element.
s'Which way shall we go? With its states
men OF with its camp followers? With its
principles, or with its organization, stam-
peded and guided by its enemies? In which
Il y,
is to have a future? Let no man be afraid
to be right on this question, for it is the right
that will triumph in the end, whether it re-
forms the party or destroys it. shall there
fore vote for Mckinley.
81 am not a Republican and never shall
be. do not believe in protection and
shall never be converted to it. But in the
throes of a deadly malady,I cannot afford to
eject the only physician who is in situa-
ton to help me, because his political opin-
ions are different from mine or even because
there are better physicians than he, if they
could only be had in time. shall go further
and shall vote at the September election for
the Republican candidate for governor. I
could notyote for any Democratic candidate
however esti1nable his character, and how
ever sound his personal views, who permits
himself to be run on the Chicago platform
of fraudulent money. The amount of majori-
ty at the September election in Vermont
may be of much significance. 1t may in
spirit OF may discourage those who in other
fields are bearing the burden and heat of
the fight for the right. wish my vote to be
so cast as to count for the most it can
wherever it is counted''