The Bellefontaine Republican. [volume] (Bellefontaine, Logan County, Ohio) 1855-1905, 1899-10-06
live issue. Ny fe low-citizens, 1t is. and


cially of every waye-wOrker In 1t; and 1t
must remain one of the chief of live issues
until Is not merely subordthated, but /
abandoned repudiated by the
Democratic party. They can not be both |
for and against free silver, and as long as
they are for 1t, it makes no difference
whether they shout whisper their allegi- |
ance. In either case they would have to
turn their words into acts should they |
come into power; and in both cases, there |
fore, the menace to the prosperity of the |
country and the welfare of its citizens are |
equally great.
l shall not 60 over with you the argu-
ments against a Ascent dollar. Our oppo- |
nents at the bottom of their hearts admit |
they dare not try to met them, and trust
10 be able to avoid them by clouding the
Issue and diverting the attention of the
voters to other matters.
Country Above Party.
The salvation of this country lies to no
small extent In the fact that while the bulk
of our people fully appreciate the impor-
tance of party, and the usefulness of party
government, yet that they put country
above party.
More than once in the past, when the
leaders of a great party, drunk with mad
ness, have followed a path that meant ter
rible disaster to the nation, the nation has
been saved by the fact that the best men
in the party declined to follow the leaders
who would make it false to the past, false
to the country, false to the ideals of its
best men. So 1t was in the civil war, when
the war Democrats honOred themselves by
standing by the country; and so it will be
now, for we have right to call upon all
sincere lovers Of the flag, upon all believ-
ers in national honesty and civic upright
ness, upon all men who wish to bring about
the betterment and uplifting Of the mass
of the people, to stand with us until the
heresies for which our opponents now fight
have been relegated to the unclean dust
where they belong.
Democr Is Propose No Remedy.
Our opponents denounce trusts. But they
propose not one remedy that would not
make the situation ten times worse than
at its worst it now is. l have read through
carefully the speeches of Mr.. Bryan and of
his fellows to find out what they propose
to do. 1 have found plenty Of vague de-
nunciation. / have not found so much as
an attempt to formulate a rational policy
Of relief
More and more as we study their
speeches. it must be impressed deeply upon
us that they are not seeking to secure
remedy for the grave economic evils that
have made themselves manifest in connec-
ton with the huge industrial development,
which we speak of as the growth of
trusts" mat they are not honestly striving
for a remedy; that all they are seeking to
do is to raise a cry which will infame the
| people, that thereby they themselves may
come back to power. They are not striving
| to benefit the people. They are striving
| to hoodwink the people in order to benefit
| themselves.
Free Silver No Remedy.
In the Democratic platform Of Ohio just
nf i1f ncnd- a
| first that you should change the tariff, be-
| cause it favors trusts; and the second, that
| you should coin silver at the ratio Of 16 to
| without regard to the action Of any other
| nation.
| They pretend that the tariff favors
| trusts. They know well that the greatest
| trusts in this Countrywide Standard Oil
| and the sugar trusts-are utterly unafect-
ed by the tariff They know we'll that the
trust with which there is the most wide
spread and deepest dissatisfaction, the beef
| trust, Is utterly unaffected by the tariff
| and in my own state one Of the largest
trusts, the Ice trust (Which Is said to have
as its most prominent member and pro-
moter that ardent antitrust champion and
advocate of Mr.. Bryan, Mr.. Richard Gro
kerr, Is also wholly unaffected by the tarin.
They know all this, for they can not but
know it, If they possess the intelligence
to draw up a platform; and yet they In
weigh against the tariff, knowing what they
say is false, because, as they have nc
remedy, they trust, by proposing false
remedy, they can mislead the people fol
their own benefit and to the peoples de
struction. Six years ago you were under
kind of tariff to which they now ask yor
to return. And you were suffering from
the threat Of free coinage-the threat which
they now revive.
Six Years Ago and Today.
Are the people of this country so short
sighted that they forget the miseries Of si1
years ago? Do they forget the bread riots
the poverty, the squalid want, even O.
those able and anxious to work? I appea
to the evidence Of your own senses. Are yol
or are you not better off than you were 81,
years ago? The farmer, the tradesman
the man with the dinner pail, the wage
, worker, are these men whole bette
OF worse Off than they were six years ago
, In a great community there Is, and ther
, always will be, individual suffering, no
only among the shiftless and the ne'er-do
| wells but at certain times and in certain
, places among the honest and industriou
with whom fate has gone hard. We can no
by any laws bring happiness and prosper
ity to every one, but we can do what tn
: Republican party has actually done; tina
Is, by wise legislation and wise administrs
tion secure the cnance for the great bul
| of our people to live out their lives an
do their work with the odds as much a
' possible in their favor; the conditions a
+ | favorable they be made.
9 You can not by law make man pros
: porous You can only do what we hav
done-give him the chance to become pros
porous by his own exertions But you ca
very readily by law take this chance ava
+ from him, and as sure as there is sun
l heaven, If you do what your opponents as
g you to do, If you upset our present tart
n policy and plunge us back into the &c,
nomic chaos in which we were founderin
six years ago, and If you upset our systel
, of finance and destroy our national credi
r then you will cast this country into a col
e dition of appalling misery, misery whic
: will be felt by al, but which will be fe
most severely by the Vageworkers,
whom our foes especially appeal. Surel
|; the country has had enough Of tariff TIM
y ering by the opponents of pr0tectiy
/ tariff
Free Silver and the Wage e-Earners. =
4 The second great remedy they propose f.
d trusts is the free coinage Of silver at
J. to 1.-THE coinage of Ascent dollar. The
t. actually propose to the people that, If Il
trusts deprive certain men of part of the
earnings, or throw a certain body of me
out of employment. this shall be remedit
n by decreeing that the men who still ha'
N employment sha.. be paid 4S cents on Il
'I dollar Ior the work they do.
y f they cary through their propositio
y II they succeed in securing the free coina
IL of silver, the effect would be indeed disa
he trous upon the whole community; for the
n is, in spite of what demagogues may ia
s. a real and ever present brotherhood of
le terest throughout this whole nation, fro
10 lue top to the bottom. from the east to t
IS west, from the north to the south, and y,
can not cause widespread disaster to al
OF one class without including other class
NJ .,-. = . a..o. 90. -. -, -. .