Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1899-06-22
MAKING A CURRENCY ISSUE
Ooagfng Tactics OF the Republicans
abandonment of the Principle
of Self Government.


The republicans, we are told, viii
hold Q series of conferences t.
discuss not only the house caucus
scheme of currency reform, but all the
different projects of financial reform
| with view to the creation of gen.
eral financial policy for the next ses.
sion Of congress"
1.-THE Importance OF this" we are
told, will 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-
Dental campaigns of next summer
Yes, this win 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 indicted 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 cleo
ton turned. 1t was the burning issue"
of the campaign of 1896, yet it has been
persistently lodged ever since. In
stead of urging currency reform at the
outset Mckinley called an extra ses-
sion of congress before he was fairly
warm in his seat to give the country
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 in
suit as he could offer to the men with
out whose votes by his own admission
he could never have been elected. He
dprecisely 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 Nc
Kinley party are holding long confer
ences for the purpose of manufacture
ing a currency issue for the coming
campaign. They manifestly 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-
ton. 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 moth
ing all this time sufficiently proves that
they do not care to do anything. They
IRE MORALLY 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, APP
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 17T6, 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,