The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-10-21

g2ther ana assert the sovereignty of the
people in the management of public af-
fairs by hurting Mckinley and Mark Han
Ras henchmen and satellites from power,
this Republic is doomed for destruction.
But the McKinleyites seek to cover UP
their sinister designs with the cry OF
Expanson Expansion! And they will
ask me and you, amt you in favor OF
Expansion" l answer yes, if it is ex-
pansion such as Mr. Jefferson secured by
the Louisiana purchase and Mr.. Seward
secured by the purchase of Alaska; but
l am not in favor of the expansion ideas
or McKinley's administration as shown
by the course now being pursued in Porto
Rico and the Philippine Islands. am not
in favor of imposing an unconstitutional
tariff tax upon the people of Porto Rico.
/ will tell you what kind of expansion
| am in favor if. | am in favor of build
ing the Nicaragua Canal and thereby
placing the cotton fields of the South and
our Southern seaboard cities in their
trade relations eleven thousand miles
nearer Japan and China than they are
now l would rather see the cotton and
tobacco goods of North Carolina and the
South shipped to the Philippine Islands
and to Asia, than to see our soldiers
shipped there and slaughtered And the
Kansas City platform pledges Mr.. Bryan
to this very course of action if he is
elected Now don't make any mistake
about this expansion business. Aesop
tells us in one of his old fables that
once a bullfrog sitting on the bank of
pond saw an OK come down to the pond
to get drink of water and while the OK
was drinking the frog admiring the great
size of the OK concluded he would Eek
pand' himself to be as big as the OK.
Result, frogs skin busted, dead frog.
Too much Mckinley expansion will kill
this Republic, or any other republic
which tries it in that way.
2. Now let me talk to you some about
trusts and monopolies. This involves
something we people of North Carolina
are more familiar with. But Mark Hanna
says there are no trusts Yes, Bob
Ingersol used to say: There is no He'll
but he never could get Christian people
to believe him. / think you might sooner
believe Bob Ingersoll's theories about
hell than Hanna's assertions about trusts.
For in the one case there are no living
witnesses whom you could call to testify
from personal experience as to lngersolls
theories about hell to contradict him; but
there are millions of living witnesses
who can contradict Mark Hanna's as
sertions about trusts, and who can tes-
tify from their own experience as to trust
oppression andn iquity.
l may say in passing, that the devil
himself never yet has invented better
scheme to Cypress the American people
than that of trusts and monopolies in
articles of trade and commerce.
Go and read and re-read the Kansas
City platform of the Democratic party.
Or if you are so blinded by partisan
prejudice that you don't want to read
what any Democrat has written, get the
Code of North Carolina and read Sec
tion 81 of Article l of the Constitution of
North Carolina, which you and every vo-
ter and every office holder in North Car
DINA, State and county, has solemnly
sworn to support. That section of our
State Constitution reads as follows:
Sec. 81 Perpetuities and MONOPO-
LIES are contrary to the genius of free
State, and ought not to be allowed
This provision or declaration of a fun
damental principle of government was
into the Constitution of
North Carolina by the Republican party
in 1868. But it was nothing new then,
nor are the utterances of the Demo-
cratic Kansas City platform, the an
of any new principle of gov
modern application of
old principles applied to the great evils
OF trusts and monopolies in our own
times. That is all. Before North Car
DINA ever had a constitutional form of
government this principle of government,
n n OnnnnnOIipc declared
by the Convention of Delegates who met
at Halifax in 1875 to frame the first
State Constitution for North Carolina.
l read to you from the Revised Statutes
of North Carolina section 90 of the old
Declaration of Rights adopted De-
cember 18th, 1915, at Halifax, and it is
word for word exactyl the same Ian
guage as section 81, article l., Of our
present State Constitution, and reads as
''Sec. %. That perpetuities and monop-
Giles are contrary to the genius of a
free State, and ought not to be allowed"
Even before the United States govern
ment had any existence, the freemen of
North Carolina had declared all trade
'monopolies contrary to the genius of
a free State.''
What would those old patriots say,
think you, if they could rise from their
graves and see the present state of
things, not only in North Carolina, but
in every State and Territory of this In
ion? Almost everything you produce,
use, eat or wear, controlled by trust
and men who have solemnly
sworn to support the constitution, and
know from experience and observation
that trusts and monopolies are destroying
the very foundations of government and
it's administration are going
to lay aside their oaths on election day
and vote to continue Mckinley, Mark
Hanna and such plant tools of trust
in office. viii you do it?
A TIJOTrSAND TONCJTEC