The Irish standard., 1899-01-21
REELECTION OF SEN. DAVIS.
Moro of the AnElomaniac's Record of
IncOnsistcncies.
Democratic Reform Press Bureau,

Democratic Reform Press Bureau,
st. Paul, Jan. 16, 1899.
The statutory time for election of
United States senator falling on Tues
day, the 18th, by the perfunctory manner
in which the Republican majority will
carry out the program of Senator
Davis reelection, it will, in all proba-
bility, be over before this letter reaches
its readers. There will be no attention
whatever paid to the points which have
been raised regarding the Inconsistencies
of Senator Davis record, or those Of
his party. No Republican will call in
question the work of the senator's hands
as member of the Paris peace commits
sion, no matter how the nation at its
capital may be torn up, and his party
divided upon the questions growing out
OF the proposed rape of the Philippines.
Minnesota Republicans swallow what
ever doses bear the party label without
grlmace, and the Davis dose is not one
OF the least though the latest. Would
it were the last.
But the mechanical reelection of Da-
Wis does not remove from sight these
points OF record in which he stands at
direct variance with the tenets of his
party. We have seen him in the role Of
the original, uncompromising enemy Of
corporations, the advance agent of the
wlldest-eyed of the wild-eyed; the de-
tanner of courts, the prophet Of evils
from the monopolistic power of wealth,
and now see the G. X. Davis that was
demolish pet notion of his party
priests, to-wit, the balance of trade
theory.
About the only fact available to boil
ster up the false prosperity of Mckinley,
Republican administration is the tre-
mendous excess of our exports over our
imports-our balance Of trade. Mr.
Davis, in the Minneapolis Exposition adj
dress august, 1856, dealt this false
theory the following blow. Expounding
the doctrine of the Golden Rule of In
terest," he said:
The nearer parties to an exchange
are to each other, the greater the profit
to each. Let it never be forgotten
that the principle exchanges of the ma
ton must be made within its bounda-
ries. Neither protection nor free trade
can annul this law. Ninety-two per-
centum of our dealings are with each
other The old delusion that national
prosperity depends upon the balance of
international trade, even if 1t were true.
concerns only 8 per cent of our trans
actions. The dogma that this mere
money balance between us and foreign
nations makes or destroys our prosper
ity is an exploded error"
The reform forces of this state need
look no further than Senator Davis for
justification on almost every position
they take. Is it governmental control?
Davis taught and advocated govern
mental seizure.
Are reformers to be criticised? Davis
said in the Ann Arbor address: "The
problem of our time, as it has been Of
all times past, is to master the forces
which disn1ember states and institu-
tions.'
Is independence of political action
despicable? Davis said: "The first
lesson is to beware of presidents. No
great benefit, social or moral, to man
kind, has ever been wrought without an
infraction of presidents, and this in
severity and cruelty has been exactly
in proportion to the obduracy of the re-
sistance it has encountered
Should we press to avert the perils
we see? Davis said, IA long years ago,
when the insiduous poison of our syst
tenn was just beginning to work:
"And if we now are, as I firmly be-
lieve, in a critical period of our devel-
opment; If changes in our system are
threatened Of the most radical charac-
ter; if problems which never before
arose in any state are presenting them
selves for solution; if insiduous in
fluences have already endangered some
of the most vital elements of our ma
tional and social being; if these must be
met, not by the sword, but by the in
tellect Of the people, working upon our
institutions to reform and to better them
then no voice can be too loudly raised,
even if. like Cassandra's, it he not be-
lieved."
Shall we resist the combine and the
trust, the acme of the corporate ag-
gressions against which Davis inveigh-
ed? Davis said in the Ann Arbor ad-
dress, as in Modern Feudalism":
"Justinian abolished the corporations,
and 1000 years afterward they threaten
society as they did the stability of
Rome. Agrarianism was laid to rest
with the Gracchi, to reappear in our
time under circumstances strikingly
similar. Feudalism, with its domains,
It's untaxed lords, their retainers, its ex-
emptions and privileges, made war upon
the aspiring spirit of humanity, and fell
with all it's grandeurs. Its spirit walks
the earth and haunts the institutions
Of today, in the great corporations,
with the control of the national high
ways, their occupation of great do