The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1900-11-17
ponding to that of the liberal parties

i've reforms Those seceders who are
worth having will come back. Those
who were never Democrats at all, but
merely wore the livery Of Democracy
to serve Mammon in, will stay in the
Republican party, where they belong.
There will be nothing in the atti-
tude of the new Democracy that will
give any man of brains and honesty Il
chance to say that its triumph would
mean a business upheaval. When it
advocates graduated income tax, for
instance, the recipients Of overgrown
incomes may grumble, but they can
not deny that such taxes arg common
fiscal expedients in the conservative
States of Europe.
When it demands that we dig and
fortify the Nicaragua canal it's oppo-
nents will be estopped from alarmist
criticism by the recollection that six
teen years ago Republican admins
tration concluded treaty with Mic
aragua providing for that very thing.
When it calls for the election of
Senators by the people the most timid
white rabbit of business cannot see
the specter Of anarchy and riot The
Democratic party will demand "the
destruction of criminal trusts" and mo
protection for oppressive trusts"
There is nothing incendiary in that,
for the trusts are the anarchists and
revolutionists Of the age, needless of
the rights of property, business and
life.
The new Democracy will work for
the public ownership of public fran
chises. That will include postal tele-
graphs. The reforms could have more
far-rcaching effects, but it would be
hard to excite panic over the matter
when it was remembered that postal
telegraphs were an institution pre-
vailing throughout the entire civilized
world, the United States being the only
conspicuous exception.
Government railroads will be part
of the Democratic policy. That is IL
thing that goes to the very base of the
economic life of the nation. 1t cuts at
the root of trust privileges. 1t means
equality Of opportunity for producers
tand dealers of every sort. 1t means Il
check to the concentration of wealth
in the hands of the few.
In the best sense it is revolutionary
and yet is not thing that could be
made to excite a single qualm of appre-
hension in the business mind. Ger.
many is hardly the type of a Populist
country, but the German governments
own their own railroads. Russia is
not the prey Of demagogues, but tho
principal railroads of Russia are inn
perial property, and the greatest of
them carries laborer twenty miles for
cent. The British colonies in Austria.
lasia and South Africa own and oper-
ate their own railroads, and nobody
thinks of turning them over to cor.
porate control.
| When it advocates postal savings
banks, private bankers may be re.
sentful, but they cannot call the prop.
osition incendiary and destructive in
the face of the fact that England,
Italy, Canada and a dozen other cour-
tries operate such banks with uniform
success, and that Hawaii had them
until we suppressed the system after
annexation against the wishes of the
people concerned.
In short, the Democratic policy will
be constructive, not destructive. The
Democracy will always be urging the
country forward, but there will never
be Il chance to say that the reforms
it favors would endanger any mans
job or any mans saving bank deposit.
The Democratic party will be, too,
as it was during the first sixty years
of its history, the distinctively Ameri-
can party. Democracy was the parent
of the Monroe doctrine. 1t was under
Democratic rule that the United
States acquired every accession of ter
ritory it gained in the first three-quar-
tiers of century Of its existence,
Democratic secretaries of state
hewed out those timbers Of national
policy that European diplomatists
have come grudgingly to recognize as
forming part of the fabric Of interna-
tional law.
Another Democratic administration
will take up in 1905 the work handed
down by Jefferson, Monroe, JOIN.
Quincy Adams and Marcy. 1t will
stand for american expansion as op-
posed to imperial exploitation"
Undoubtedly President Mckinley
will take advantage of his victory to
secure the ratification of the Hay
Pauncefote treaty, and the construc-
ton Of the Nicaragua Canal will be
begun under conditions that will put
the isthmian waterway under the con-
troll Of the dominant naval power.
The Democracy will either find
means to induce England to abandon
that control or will make the United
States the dominant naval power. 1t
will keep what territory Mr.. McKin-
ley leaves us in Alaska. 1t will NOT