The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1898-10-24
4 CHARLATAN P|LLORI[D.
Joseph Dana Miller Roasts
George L. Record on a
Red . Hot Gridiron.
Dear Mr.. Record

Dear Mr. Record
l have read, confess with no little
surprise, the interview in which you
sever your allegiance to the Democratic
and declare your intention of hereafter
acting with the Republican party. 1t is
unnecessary for me to say holding the
estimate | do for your great abilities and
sterling character, that I do not doubt
that your action is determined by the
highest and purest Of motives. 1t is
however, from the reasons which inpel
you to such action, and which appear to
you so conclusive, that wish to dissent.
We hold the same views on the money
question. even to that extent, l imagine
that both of us would favor the de4
monetization of gold and silver, holding
that the government should limit itself to
the stamping of such coins as it may IS
sue and guaranteeing their true weight
and fneness and that it is no proper
function of government to set up an
arbitrary monetary standard for the
people. We both agree as to the economic
unsoundness of the demand for the free
coinage of silver at any other ratio than
the commercial one prevailing at the time
such issue is made.
But there are other things, too, upon
which we agree, and which are not to-
be relegated to the lumber room of dis
carded issues. We are both freetraders;
we both agree as to the impolicy of all
present modes of taxation, and we would
substitute for all such taxes a single tax
upon the value of land. You are mistaken
if you think the advent of this question
into the arena of practical politics is at
all remote. In California and Washing
ton it even now political ISSUE In both
States it is the Democratic party which is
taking advanced ground upon this ques-
ton; that party is much more hospitabie
TO the new reform than the one with
which you propose to act in the future 1t
seems to me, with all proper respect for
your intellectual Judgment, that you are
burning the bridges in front of you.
| must also express surprise at the
tone of some portions of your interview,
especially in that part where you say
s.As a matter of fact the Democracy is
no longer a political party. In the East
it is little better than an organized con-
spiracy for plunder. In the West it is
an organized howl of discomfort" The
word howl is supererrogatory- But
the discomfort, l may take the liberty to
remind you, is largely due to the results
that have followed that system of tariff
taxation against which the Democratic
party is the sole organization in opposi-
ton, against which you have always
fought; and which the party with which
you now propose to ally yourself has
championed for thirty years!
But when you announce as one of the
reasons for leaving the Democratic party
the corruption that reigns within it.
wondered vaguely wehTe You would 50.
could conceive OF you joining the Pro-
hibifionists on such grounds, or abjuring,
as some political purists have done, the
franchise altogether. But my wonder in
creased when in the next paragraph you
told us that you would in the future act
with the Republican party!
To leave the Democratic party because
of it's corruption for the party of Hanna,
Alger, Quay, Sewell. ct al. is like a man
who affoat in a boat that has some water
in the bottom of it, jumps into the sea
for fear of getting his feet wet.
To Mr.. Record and those who think
with him it is necessary to point out that
we are really approaching critical period
in our national history. We stand at the
threshold of an era in which one party
having had the nominal conduct of the
war, is in danger of becoming. because
of the ominous influences which surround
the administration, an instrument
which, in violation of our most sacred
pledge may defeat the purposes for
which the most generous conflict
In history was entered upon. The
Democratic party which confronts it
in the political arena may have much to
answer for in the matter of economic
heresy and regulations unsavory, but it
is at least yet normal and healthy with
the passionate life of the people. Espee-
tally is thus true of the Democratic party
of the West where if discomfort some
times rnanifests itself in howl or
ganized or otherwise, the dissatisfaction
with unjust conditions is better than the
deadly soporific of the conservatism OF
the East. and it is this conservatism that
the Republican party typifies and en1-
bodies in almost every State in the
Union.
JOSEPH DANA MILLER.