The record-union. [volume] (Sacramento, Calif.) 1891-1903, 1896-07-05


a great deal of property covered by
great deal Of debt.
lit will defeat the Democratic party
That is the faith of the business world
and for that faith they thank heaven
daily. The Democratic party can stand
defeat III a worthy cause; if necessary,
it can stand extinction, for it has a
! glorious HISTORY that will live What
il cannot stand is the odiunn of silver
recommendation and of paltering with
the honor of the Nation and the pros
perity of the people.
| IF the convention declares for free
coinage at 16 to l by this Nation alone,
that action will not be Democratic ac-
ton. 1t will be a Populistic action. A
| Democratic Convention may turn Pop
ulistic, and many Democrats may turn
Populists, but a million Democrats will
remain Democrats. No wave of Popu-
lism can sweep them off their feet
| Mr.. McVeagh clos with introducing
to the meeting a man Who under other
circumstances might have been the
Presidential nominee, the Hon. William
E. Russell of Massa ch,lsetts. (Cheers)
| Ex-Governor Russell then addressed
the meeting as follows:
| I'VE have met on the eve of our
National Convention to take council
together for the promotion of the well
| fare OF our party and our country. We
meet with no personal ambition to
serve, with no threat upon our lip, and
/ with no purpose to question the sinceri-
ty or honesty of any Democrat how
! ever radical the differences within our
ranks, but We are painfully conscious of
| the palpabie fact that for the first time
within a generation, and for the second
time only in its hundred years of hon
orable life, the great national Demo-
| cratic party is on the point of sectional
and geographical division with it's un-
told miseries and disasters The door
IS open for derision, defeat dishonor;
| we see new faces and new principles
| urging us on, but we have not yet
crossed its threshold. May God save US
| from the fatal STEP
In spirit Of unflinching loyalty to
a party which for a life time has been
to many OF US guiding faith, of deep
| est love to our common country for
| whom all would give their blood and
life, we ask the representatives of our
party to pause. and without pride or
passion to consider well before commit
ting Democracy to a radical and novel
| policy which we declare affects our
nations honor and we know must
| break the ties which bind North and
South, East and West together in an
enduring and triumphant Democracy.
| The glory Of our party has been in
the past, and ought now and forever,
to be its broad national character 1t
has been and is the peoples party,
lighting for their cause against selfish
sectional and class interests which con-
troll the Republican party. Within its
ranks thus far there has been no room,
thank God, for sectional pride, pro-
scriptive bigotry, controlled by selfish
interests or any influence which would
divide us on geographical religious or
class lines. Rights, not favors; the
people, not classes; our country, not
| its sections, are the maxims of our
| Democratic creed.
| Has the time come when we are
ready to surrender these, the cardinal
principles of our faith, to reverse the
established policy of our party to look
u a paternal government to add value
to any comrnodity in the interest of
class or section, and as the result of
such folly to destroy the national char
acter of a broad and tolerant Democ-
rdcy? We are not ready to surrender
to Republican protection and throw
that mantle over silver, its discarded
shield, nor to abandon our position as
the peoples party, to become, like the
Republicans, a party of class and OF
section.
For the first time in its history the
Democratic party is urged to make the
cardinal principles OF it's faith and the
issue of it's campaign silver monometal-
lism-a new and deprecated standard OF
value. The demand is for free coinage
of silver at 16to 1, which means that the
power and force of the Government are
to be invoked to change our unit OF
value. and to substitute fifty cents OF
silver for a dollar in gold, and then to
adjust the business of the country. all
wages, earnings and savings, all debts
and credits, all public obligations and
the rational honor to this. deprecated
standard. The demand comes from a
section and class, and appeals to a pa
ternal Government to give value where
none exists. Is this demand a sound
Democratic principle? Does it accord
: with the teaching and record of oglr
t party, with the faith of jefferson and
Cleveland, with its unfiinching position
, always in favor of sound and hard
money, with it's opposition to paper
legal tender and Sherman silver bills
with its constant, undying enmity
against paternalism and protection. and
: its proud boast of being the peoples par
Z ty. broad as the Nation, controlled by NC
class or section of selfish interest? MAY
the delegates here gathered to proclaim
our old Democratic faith put this cues
ton to their consciences before they
plunge US into heresy and schism
Never yet has this demand beer
plank in any national Democratic
platform 1t was expressly repudiatet
in the convention OF 1876, and there
after abandoned. Three times in twenty
years we have elected a Democra tit
Presidential canditllt on a platform
hostile to such doctrine, yet cordially
supported by a loyal and united party
If free coinage of silver is Democrats
doctrine, it is such doctrine only in the
year of our Lord 1896, never in an,
year before nor likely to be in any yea
: hereafter. 1t is not only a new. bus
radical departure. 1t destroys cur pres
ent standard of value and ends all hop,
OF a bimetallic standard
mo power under heaven has estab
lished and maintained or can a bi
: metallic standard at a ratio where on,
: coin is given double its intrinsic value
To make fifty cents of silver by force O.
Government equal 20 dollar in gol6
will by the inexou'able laws of nature
. over which the Government is powerless
, drive out gold, contract our currency
a cialfo