The Forrest City times., 1899-07-28
BRYAN IN CHICAGO.
Talks Against Gold Standard, Trusts
 and Imperialism.
Urges Chicago Democrats to stop Fractional Strife and Unite Radicals Kept from
 Boiling.

At the meeting of the national demo- cratic committee at the Auditorium, Chicago, Thursday the goth, William J. Bryan succeeded in restoring peace be- tween the warning factions in the local democracy, and in response to a tu- multuous demand addressed the meet ing as follows:
 MT. Chairman and Ladies and Gentle men: I am not going to trespass long upon your time. GCries of Louder and laugh ter.l You have already listened for as long a time as you are accustomed to at- tend a meeting. and it would not be proper for me to enter at any great length upon any of the questions which are now before the public. I am somewhat embarrassed in speaking in Chicago, because the advo- cates of the Chicago platform are divided into two kinds, and 1t is not my business to employ the secret service to ascertain what democrats are firmest believers in the party's creed. All Chicago platform democrats look alike to me-, and my aim IS not to drive out of the democratic party any professed believers in the Chicago platform. but to so impress upon all dem ocrats the importance of the principles at stake that all local differences will be for gotten in the determination to carry this government back to the foundations laid by the fathers.
 When Lincoln was appealing to the peo- pie of the country in 1858 he gave utterance to sentiment that must be the sentiment of every one who realizes the magnitude of the rtruggle in which we are engaged. After paying tribute to the founders or the country and to the declaration of in- dependence. he used these words:
 charge you to drop every paltry and insignificant thought for any mans suc- cess; it is nothing: I am nothing; Judge n0nDlaS iS Ilf dn mt destroy that immortal emblem of humanity, the declaration of American independence.'
 ''So in this country to-day we find some discussing persons, some discussing wheth- CT this man or that man or some other man is the best representative of demo- cratic doctrine. I appeal to you as Lin coin did. to drop every paltry thought about any man and think only of the principles enunciated by the democratic party in 1896. principles that carry us back to the landmarks of the constitution. We are interested first in writing platform, and we want platform that fits the dem ocratic party. platform written like the last platform, not by party bosses, but by the voters of the democratic party. When we get a platform that fits the democratic party it will be easy enough to find in state and nation candidates who fit the platform, but it is the principle above the man, and no man is fit to be a leader when he is wanted to lead who is not fit to be a follower when some one else is wanted to lead.
 Tn the brief time that shall occupy your attention l desire to crowd into few propositions an argument on three subjects. l need not tell you that the dem- ocratic platform of 1896 will be reaffirmed as the first plank of the democracy of lsoV. Occasionally some one talks about getting off of that platform, but upon in- vestgation it is generally found that the man who wants to get off of it was never, In fact, upon the platform. The people who made the fight and who by winning the fight saved the democratic party in 1896 are still firm in the faith, and there is only one plank in that platform of which l shall speak tonight, and that is the one plank toward which most of the criticism is directed.
 T would defend every plank assailed But there are some who say that if we will just drop the money question that we will make 1t easy for those who left us to come back. The fight in 1896 was won on the money question. IL was the money question expressed in a specific remedy that afforded us the means of distinguish ing the believer in bimetallism from the believer in the gold standard. And if they tell you to-day that events have vindicated the gold standard you can answer them first, that when MT. Mckinley sent com mission all the way to Europe to get rid
 
 were right in 1896 when he said the gold standard was not satisfactory Some of you may be so prejudiced that you cannot do justice to Mir. Mckinley, but I am so fair-minded that I can give him credit for sincerity when he appointed three dis tlngulshed men and sent them all the way to Europe to cry out in every market place: Help, help the American people out or the hole that the gold standard put them into. Not only can you point to the fact that the commission went to Europe as an evidence that the gold standard was not then satisfactory, but you can point to the failure of the commission to secure inter- national aid as evidence that independent action is absolutely necessary 10 secure success. If they tell you that the dis covery of gold in the klondke and the importation of gold from abroad has given us more money and made better times, you can reply to them that when they say that they confess the truth of the quan- tltative theory of money, and you can add that if a little gold from the KIondike or little gold from Europe is able to make little better times, that if we would open the hints to the coinage of silver as well as gold and take the money out of our own mountains and have our own money now and at all times, we could have great deal better times and not depend on Eng lsh gold or gold from the Klondike or from our exports. You can remind them that NhSh we were ulScuSSing the silver QiIeS- ton, and our ability to maintain the parity they said that because of an increasing production of silver we could not keep the metals together. If that argument had weight when they made it. we can now say that an increasing production of gold makes 1t easier to keep the metals to- gether than 1t used to be when they found fault with us. But this is an old question. and one about which We have talked many times
 There Is another question. half new and half old. The trust question that was In the campaign of 1896. enough to get all the trusts onto the other side. and vet not enough to make the people understand what the trust question means. And even now you will find people who say that the republican party is doing all that it can do. Why, the trust is so bad and so in oefensible that even in Ohio, in a state convention controlled by MT Hanna. they had to adopt a resolution declaring trusts 70 DC bad, and when that convention con- 1emns the trusts, who in all the world will lara defend the trusts? [Great applause The trust Is bad because of the monopoIy feature. When few people control a product necessary to human existence then those few control to a large extent the lives and the happiness of all who nro-