The Republican., 1899-10-12
MIR. JOHN V. l.. FINDLAY.
He DepIores a Spirit That Appeals
Race Prejudice"

He DepIores a Spirit That .'Appeals tc
Race Prejudice"
On Tuesday Mr.. John V. l.. Find.
lay wrote as follows:
Hon. George 4. Peorre, Chairman,
Etc.
Dear Sir: | accept the nomina-
ton for Attorney General, and if elect
ed will endeavor to discharge the du-
ties of a very responsible office to the
best of my ability.
"Rowdyism is always a MANAGE to
society, come from what quarter it
may, but the logic or propriety of at
tempting to abate one species OF
rowdyism by an incitement to another
IS not altogether clear to my mind.
The very essence of rowdyism is the
spirit that appeals to race prejudice,
at the recent outrageous exhibition
of which in another land the civilized
world, even in the presence of Dreyfus
pardoned,f ,fstill stands appalled,.
'This Democratic platform, silent
upon nearly every other issue both
State and national, utters no uncer-
tain sound on this, and the Demo-
cratic candidates have given it their
Maryland may be placed in line with
what they are pleased to style our
sister Southern States. All the States
of this Union are sisters of Maryland,
those to the north and west of us as
well as the south, and we do not be-
lieve that it is either patriotism or
policy to attempt to place Maryland
on one side of a sectional division.
We thought that it was the senti-
ment of Maryland as well as elsewhere
that the Spanish War had wiped out
Mason and Dixons' line.
LAS to police organization, we are
in favor of the principle and the
measures that will make the force a
nonpartisan organization, an achieve
ment only made possible by Republi-
can success in 1895, and we look with
some suspicion upon the promises of
the Democratic party, which waited
for generation before it discovered
the necessity of this reform, and then
onfy under the compulsion of Repub-
lican initiation and leadership. We
believe that whatever concerns the
welfare of the United States concerns
also the welfare of the respective
States, and that it is the duty of the
party in its State conventions to plant
itself squarely upon the great princi-
pies of the party as declared in Nation
al Conventions, and, for that matter,
to take the initiative in giving a
proper direction to public opinion.
"The question whether the gold
dollar shall be the standard of none
tary value and the ultimate money of
Il, of oll
rencies in circulation vitally affects
the dealings between the citizens of
any particular State, as well as the
dealings between them ands the citi-
zens of the other States, and it is sim
ply absurd to say that such a ques-
tion raises a national and not State
issue. The Congress of the United
States, of course, can only settle it.,
but the opinion out of which a proper
law upon the subject is to eventually
emerge can only be created in the
several States.
Every Democratic platform, with
the exception of Maryland, has a de-
liverance on this issue, and the Demo-
cratic party in Maryland, in its plat
form of 1895, first declared for gold
and afterward wobbled toward silver,
and then took on such a cross-eyed
expression toward both gold and sill
yer that no one could tell in which
way it was looking. We can respect
a man, however much we may differ
from him, who believes honestly in
what is known as free silver, but we
have no respect for a party that is too
cowardly to proclaim itself upon the
most vital issue of the day and seeks
to hide its cowardice in transparent
subterfuge too silly to deceive anyone.
1.-THE plain truth is that the Demo
cratic party in this State is in no posi-
tion to make a declaration in favor of
the gold standard for the obvious
reason that such declaration would
amount to q reputation in advance
of the platform, and the candidate of
the National Democracy in 1900. That
platform and that candidate is just
as certain to declare for free silver,
and that candidate is just as sure to
be w. ], Bryan, as the Democracy of
Maryland will flop over to both plat