The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1898-05-12
leh4Dd3 Bora e is a large number
I Jcistic 6wsc.Aaders and Demo-
Ymrehy r,s (whO are more in
!. than 3eveland and his
CONS; To- WI Bryan and his
pI.,.C us' even admit that
aisSes up majority cf
-. ,preSS~d the
CUhi1nit tee; but


great rank and file OF the Demo-
cratic party: We know that there
were from fifty to a hundred thou
sand Democrats in the State who
were on the eve of leaving the
Democratic party when the Demo-
cratic national convention con-
vened in 1896. They would have
left if Cleveland had been nomi-
mated or if any straddlebug had
been nominated. These men were
then about to take the patriotic
course that you and took in 1892.
They are no less patriotic now than
they were then. These voters in
this State are the rank and file of
their party. They have to-day no
more confidence in the Democratic
leaders who supported Cleveland
and who up to 1896 ridiculed silver
and every other reform that the
Peoples Party were advocating
than they had then. They are sim
ply staying in the party because
they have faith in Bryan and
Organism. They were going to
follow in his lead then, and they
are simply following his lead now.
| If we ever get these voters in the
future, and our only hope for re-
cruits in the future is chiefly from
this class Of voters, we must do it
by pursuing such course as will
commend itself to these men and at
the same time expose the hypocrisy
of the pretended Bryan Democrat
who is at heart Cleveland Demo-
crat. II we pursue such course
they will come if their party back
slides, and, / might say, if it fails
to progress.
1 believe that the great majority
OF the voters Of the nation, as we'll
as Of North Carolina, are honest
and patriotic. They sincerely be-
iieve in the principles advocated by
Jefferson, Jackson and Lincoln. II
this were not so then there would
be no hope Of ever redeeming this
government from the domination
of Shylock and the monopoly tories
that now have us in their clutches.
But you say that the Democratic
machine leaders, who are at heart
monopoly and Cleveland goldbugs,
will be able to fool a lot of the
honest rank and file and thus sue
coed in controlling the Democratic
State Convention, and that a party
controlled by such men ought to
he fought to the death. II this
happens, then agree with you. If
the Democratic party is not hon
estly with the people in this fight,
If it will not prove it's sincerity by
repudiating it's traitors and strad-
dlers and marching boldly up and
helping us to fight the allied and
combined enemies of humanity,
then it ought to die and the quicker
it dies the better. But the only
way that the party can be killed
that is, the only way that the dis
honest and insincere men in it can
be thrust into the Republican
party, where they belong, and the
honest and sincere men taken into
the POpulist party, where we hope
to see them-is by showing the
honest rank and file of that party
that their leaders are not sincere
and that the party will again be-
tray them as it did under Cleveland
We are now in a position to put
this test to the party and to accom-
plish this end so much to be de-
sired, and it would be criminal in
us, both from q party standpoint
and from q standpoint Of patriotic