The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1900-10-13
The Real Issue in the Campaign
Before the People.
IS NOT THR POLICY OF JEFFERSON
M'Kinley is Taking Useless and
Remote Territory.

The following extracts from the
great speech of Bourke Cochran at the
Chicago Coliseum are worth reading:
Stated in it's very narrowcst COM
pass, the issue before the American
people is the right of this government
to seize distant territory. govern it
against the will Of its inhabitants, not
under our constitutional government,
but through otliceholtlcrs to be named
| by the president, who will administer
| their functions outside the constitu-
ton and independently of its limits.
''Thcre is the issue. We would have
little difficulty in disposing of it If it
were not for the bewillering and in
tONicating effects of certain express
sions which we find the president Of
the United States justifying his actions
by referring to the Louisiana pur-
chase.
because the United States have en-
banded their form OF government over
the western territory he undertakes to
say that this annexation of islands be-
You'd the sea, which are not to be gov
crncd according to our constitutional
system, is also expansion, and, by that
use of the word, seeks to Justify by II
precedent of liberty an attempt ut sub
iugation and conquest which is an out
| rage.
| '"To think that such a system should
ever have been submitted to the Amer
can people and attempted to he justi-
fled by the purchase of Louisiana is,
perhaps, the most extraordinary in
stance in our history.
"You will observe, my friends, that
the republican party in the attempt to
justify its course by .JeGferson's exam
pie proceeds upon the assumption that
when he declared in the declaration Of
independence That the consent Of the
governed was the sole foundation Of
authority he did not mean what he
said. That is to say, it argues that
this country the most civilizing in
nucncc in the history of mankind, was
born with II lie upon it's lips.
at is difficult to discuss that patient
ly, ana yet, il this statement were
true, if the purchase of Louisiana by
jefferson were in any way analogous
to the enterprise in which Mr.. McKin-
ley is now engaged and on which he
has launched this people, should hest
tate TO condemn it, because anything
which formed a feature of Il policy Of
this government for 100 years, in view
of the results which this government
has borne, could hardly he considered
prcjudicinl to liberty Or dangerous to
progress.
"But it is not true. No two trans
actions could have been more dissim-
liar than the expansion of Jefferson
and the imperialism Of Mckinley. So
much has been said on the question
that if you will allow me 1 will state
this evening briefly as can the actual
facts OF that momentOus transaction
so that hereafter every person in this
hall who shall hear the sacred name Of
Jefferson to justify the deal of McINin-
ley will find the means of rcfuting the
SANDER and of confounding the person
who discrcdits the most illustriOus
name in American history.
"You will remember that when the
independence of this country was
achieved the western boundary Of the
United States was the center Of the
Mississippi river and the southern
boundary was the thirty first parallel
of north latitude. Its southern bound
AIRY in those days was not the Gulf of
Mexico. 1t did not touch the Gulf of
Mexico at any part. Between the
southerly lines of the union laid the
Floridas and Louisiana, all Spanish
territory.
"There were no means Of navigating
from the United States to the gulf,
except by the permission Of the Span
ish authorities. AS far back as the
period of the revolutionary war the
United States had been negotiating for
n right of navigation through the
mouth of the Mississippi through Span
ish territory to the gulf. For you will
remember that while Louisiana slaid
mainly on the western bank of the
Mississippi at the thirty-first parallel
it crossed and extended eastward to
the western boundary of Florida and
covered both banks of the river to ito