The age-herald., 1898-03-08
All Are Democrats.

Prior to 1894 there was no such thing as a populist party in the state; both the leaders and the voting masses who in that year accepted the third party name had previously asserted their claims to the dem- oeratic name and their faith in democratic democratic party, nearly one-half of It's voting strength joining a new party or ganization, with the word "Jeffersonian" preixed, as a distinct avowal that they were more specially and emphatically dem- ocrats after the faith of the fathers.
 Some of the Jeffersonan democrats were insincere; others were extremists, quite ready to join the populists or any other party; but the greater part of the Jeffer- sonians were sincerely moved by a belief that they had been mistreated, in the per- son of their leader, by their party organi- zation, and by further belief that a new and reorganized democratic party held out better hope of relief from the financial ills which the alliance movement had called to the front.
 The leaders of the revolt were familiar with the sincerity of the great voting mass and with their devotion to the old demo- cratic party, and as late as the presidential campaign of 1892 they dared not unmask their designs of turning these democrats over to a third party. They indorsed MT. Weaver, but they did so, not as populists, but as "Jeffersonian democrats" In 1894 the Jeffersonian leaders were divided. Some were in favor of throwing off any sem blance of fellowship with the democrats, and standing before the people as full fledged populists, but more believed that the word democrat was still a name to their candidate for governor proclaimed himself democrat from every stump. After their defeat in that contest the Jeff fersonian leaders ceased to assert their position as a wing of the democratic party. They then took the name ''populist," and the voting masses very soon afterwards
 
 soon lost prestige and strength.
 This brief historical outline makes 1t clear that the voting masses never did desire to be other than Jeffersonian demo- crats They were democrats; they consid- cred themselves wing of the democratic party, justifying their separation on the ground that the old party had Jagged in the work of financial reform. They now see that if their old party had been slow. their wing of 1t had gone very much too fast and far, and they had come very near to tumbling into a mill pond whose waters were perilously disturbed by the winds of strange doctrine. The Chicago platform came at happy juncture, reasserting and redefning democratic doctrine in all its primitive truthfulness and beauty, and pro- viding common standing ground for all lovers of their country. The voters in Ala bama who had been for season Jeffer- sonian democrats had but to get to the firm and safe ground of the Chicago plat form to become democrats as of old, march, ing side by side with their old-time breth- ren, all being forgiven on both sides, and no questions asked
 The way is very simple and very easy in Alabama for even those Jeffersonian democrats who went so far as to allow themselves to be called populists, to resume full fellowship with the old and honored and well-beioved party of the fathers that redeemed Alabama from the republican spoilers