The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1897-01-14

prey,
Where wealth aocumulates, and mer
decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or ma,
fade
A breath can make them as O breath hal
made;
But bold peasantry,' their country
pride,
When once destroyed, can never b'
supplied.
The taxing power Of government hal
been handed over to one snail class snt
by IL welded against the rest, and the
many hav Q thus been pillaged by the few
until we are shamed in this favored land
with the opposite extremes Of monstrous
opulence and monstrous misery.
For years this shameful policy went on
and the leaders of the Democratic party,
partly fl ON desire to share the fruits OF
this iniquity partly from lack of courage
to attack an evil strongly intrenched and
supported by converting these ill-gotten
gains into corruption funds with which
to dehauch voters, partly by che bewitch'
ing splendor with which these fortunes
were ostentstiously paraded. were con-
tent to seek return to power by indiffer-
enece to, If not approved Of, the wicked
ness of this wasting and Infamous policy.
Finally, after years Of vain struggle to
that end, in 1890 and again in 1899, op-
portuDity came to the people to pronounce
upon this shameful scheme of robbery.
Passing strange, you say, that in free
republic, the power of corrupt machine,
dominated by the very plunder extorted
from the people, should, for years, be able
to deny those plundered people the OPP
portunity to condemn the scheme Of
plunder by popular election. But such
you know to have been the melancholy
truth. At the fret opportunity the popu-
lar voice condemned 1t with an empahsis
which for the moment gave renewed
hope for the perpetuity Of popular govern
ment. But the servants of the special
interests were yet in power, and the
fruits of popular victory were doomed
to turn to bitterness and ashes.
Let me not harrow up your feelings by
recalling the scandalous action which
was the congressional answer to the voice
of the people. That was the occasion
when the Democratic party needed to be
reorganized. There was a Democratic
people, but they were misrepre and
Dem ocratic principles had no representa-
tives. The shock then given to popular
government was we'll nigh fatal. Sad
to relate, the people fed, almost panic
stricken from the false and treacherous
crowd whom they had trusted, back to
the original Republican plunderers whom
they had previously condemned, choosing
them again as the lesser Of two evils.
Appearances seem to indicate that so
long as any of the old false leaders re-
main prominent in the councils cf the
party, the party itself will not be trusted
by the people. 1t is the renewed proof Of
the truth of the adage, "a burnt child
breads the fire. "
Contemporaneously with the operation
of the protection infamy in transferring
the fruits Of toll from those who earned |
to those who robbed, another scheme was
invented and put in operation to tine same
end, but with more rapid, more blighting
and more cruel effects. This was what
is known and will continue in history to |
be known as "The Crime Of 1873" how
ever much the man from Mansfield may
wish it might be called by some other
name. For wherever his fame through the |
ages shall be seen to glimmer, there, in |
imperishable characters, will still be seen
amid the spectacle Of the tears, the
suffering, the insanity, and the suicides
ii has caused, like horrible ghost, the
dreadful legend Of "The Crime of 1873"
1t WAS most truly said by Mr.. Bryan in
bis speech at the Chicago convention, in
hat great specimen Of American elc-
luenoe that has not been surpassed since
,he age of Athenian aud Roman elo-
Iuenoe, that "if protection has slain its
the single gold standard has
,laiu it's tens Of thousands.
BY this device, the countless debts,
state, county, town, municipal
md private, were doubled, and the prop
'rty and acoum ulations of the common
leople confscated, and, by a piece of
ugRlery handed over bodily to make
ortunes for those who toll not, neither do
hey spin. Industry peiished, exchanges
topped, prices fell and then ensued the
appalling conditions around you which
xcite the pity and tears of ell whose
learts are not made stone by the pos
ession of property earned by others.
Like the protection infamy, this was
Ilso by a corrupt machine kept for years
rom popular consideration, and popular
There was no escape, no
elief but in the political slaughter and
leath Of those who long had led the
Democratic party astray. That slaughter
It length came, and the Chicago conven-
ion will be no less celebrated for the
Ieath Of the old false leaders than for the
prising Of the new star in the galaxy of
American patriots in the person Of Will
lam Jennings Bryan.
The CONSERVATION that fell upon the
ly log servants of plutocracy when they
earned that the old trick of oonpr0mi5e