Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1899-10-13
BAY STATE LEADS.
MASSACHUSETTS, DEMOCRATS
ON A SOUND PLATFORM.

LA Il ~ Il A Il - 41AAADke
MASSACHUSETTS DEMOCRATS
ON A SOUND PLATFORM.
Il Is Plain and Concise-It Reaffirms the Chi.
caso Platform Of 1896. Especially the Fl.
nancial PIank-Denounce the Surrender by
the Republicans to the Banks the Govern.
mental Function OF Issuing Money and Con.
trolling Its Volume-Demands SeIf.Govern.
mcnt for the hiIippines-Endorsemen Of
Bryan.
The platform lately adopted by the
Democrats OF the Bay State is, in part,
as follows:
Particularly do we reiterate our be-
lief in the financial plank of the Chi
cago platform, and renew our demand
for the free and unlimited coinage of
both gold and silver at the ratio of 16
to l. Heavy and unexpected discov-
cries of gold, and of new processes for
extracting that metal, together with
the other supplies, have resulted, since
1896, in an increase in the volume of
money estimated at SAL 100000 for
the United States alone. The imme-
diate revival of prices and trade ac-
companying this increase, demonstrat-
ed the Democratic contention that the
evils from which the nation suffered
so gravely in the five years prior to
1897 proceeded from contracted cur
rency for which Republican financial
legislation had provided no form of re-
lief. But the benefits of rise in the
price level under the gold standard are
of necessity unequally and unjustly
distributed. The farmers of the West
and South being compelled to sell
their products in the worlds markets
in competition with silver using coun.
tries, are condemned to low prices for
what they sell, while the rising scale
of prices at home, due partly to the
increased volume of money, and more
to the Intervention of the trusts, re.
suits in the exaction from them of
higher prices for all they have to buy.
The prosperity of New England rests
upon the prosperity of her customers,
and Massachusetts, in pleading the
cause of the farmers of the West and
South, advances her own industrial in
terests, and no system which decreases
the income and increases the outgo OF
the farming community can afford a
safe foundation for sound CONNER.
cial fabric.
The agricultural interests of the ma
tion cannot be left to the chance of
failing crops and famine in other
lands, nor can national prosperity be
founded upon expectation of disaster
to foreign peoples. If there should
now be sudden check in the produc-
ton of gold-such as is indeed threat
ened by the prospect of war in the
Transvaal-or if there should be a
new and heavy demand for that metal,
such as any European crisis would at
once create, all the evils of a currency
famine would at once reappear, and
again the nation would be left without
remedy. Only by the establishment
of bimetalism can q stable and just
equilibrium of prices be effected.
We denounce unqualifiedly the pur-
pose of the Republican party to sur
render to the banks the governmental
function of issuing paper money and
controlling its volume. Such action
would create trust in comparison
with which all other monopolies would
be trivial. Already there exists among
the banking corporations a complete
unity of interests and q practical
unity of action and by a perversion, or
an evasion OF the law, many national
banks in the money centers are con-
solidating, creating branches under
other names, and manifesting pur-
pose to adopt that spstem of centrali-
cation and monopoly which has seized
upon the commercial interests OF the
country. The power over mercantile
credits which the great banking trust,
already in sight, possesses is in itself a
menace to commercial interests, and
to add the power to arbitrarily expand
or contrast the volume of money
would be to deliver over to the bank.
ing interests the fortunes of all the
people. To-day our trust magnates
are our bankers. They hold the bank
stock they sit on the boards of direct
OTIS they select the officials and they
will apply to their command over the
supply of the nations money the
same merciless and extortionate
methods which they use in turning to
their own profit their present monopo-
lies.
To the war with Spain-a war
rightly waged in the cause of human
ity, and which was forced upon an un.
willing Republican administration by
the insistence of Democrats in House
and Senate-there has succeeded o
war of criminal aggression in the
Philippines. We hold that this war is
wapton and needless; for had the
same promise OF freedom been made to
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