The Forrest City times., 1899-06-30
MANUFACTURING AN ISSUE.
DodginH Tactics of the Republicans -Abnndonmen mt of the Principle
 of Self Government

The republicans. we are toi6, will
 hold series of conferences to
 discuss not only the house caucus
 scheme of currency reform, but all the
 different projects of financial reform,
 with view to the creation of a gem
 eral financial policy for the next ses- sion of congress"
 "The importance of this" we are told, twill be seen at once when it is
 remembered that any legislation on the currency at the next session will necessarily become an issue before the
 national conventions and in the presi- dential campaigns of next summer" Yes, this will be seen at once by peo- pie who have not seen it before. What is more suggestive is the fact that it has been foreseen ever since Mckinley
 was inducted into office, and that every
 thing like serious attempt at currency
 reform has been deliberately postponed
 to the last hour.
 The currency question was the one
 upon which the last presidential elec- tion turned. It was the burning issue" of the campaign of 1896, yet it has been
 consistently lodged ever since. h.
 stead of urging currency reform at the outset Mckinley called an extra ses-
 warm in his seat to give the country
 a tariff worse than the one which bore his name, and he relegated the currency question to back seat in the top gal
 lery and has kept it there ever since. This was about as deliberate an i'm
 suit as he could offer to the men with
 out whose votes by his own admission he could never have been elected. He
 didprecisely that to which the democrats
 who supported him, directly or indi-
 rectly, were most opposed, and made
 no effort to do that which they wished to have done, and for the sake of which
 they sundered old party ties.
 Now another presidential election is approaching, and the leaders of the Me
 Kinley party are holding long confer
 ences for the purpose of manufactur-
 ing currency issue for the coming campaign. They mnnifestly have no intention of settling the question and
 taking it out of national politics, as it
 ought to be. Their intention evidently
 is to patch up some colorless measure
 out of which they hope to get an issue
 through indiscreet democratic opposi- tion. But it is farthest from their pur-
 pose to do anything decisive and dis
 pose of the currency question in man.
 ner likely to be final.
 The fact that they have done noth- ing all this time sufficiently proves that they do not care to do anything. They
 are mortally afraid to face the people squarely on the issue of imperialism the abandonment of the fundamental principles upon which the republic is based as enunciated in the Declaration
 of Independence, the principle of self
 government. They are mortally afraid
 to meet the people on the question of
 the war of subjugation which has been waged for four months, and which, ap- parently, has just begun, in which our | soldiers are required not only to shoot down people whose only crime is that of our revolutionary fathers, but to shoot to death that very doctrine of self
 government which until now has al- ways been that in which Americans
 have most gloried and for which they
 have been ready to lay down their lives Fearing to meet the people on this,
 the most vital issue which has appeared | since the revolution of 1776, the repub-
 lican leaders are hoping to get them wildly excited once more over an empty
 currency issue, and they trust to the folly of the democratic leaders to help
 them on with that vicious enterprise Chicago Chronicle.