Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1900-08-16
SPEECH OF PERMANENT CHAIRMAN,
Address Delivered Before Democrat Today
By Hon. T. j.. Mcdonnell.

ing our volunteers. Tons of boiled
peer and spoiled beef We're taken off
the hands of the beef combine" and
dealt out to the soldiers of the land.
Inc transportation combine" re-
celved twenty millions of dollars for
carrying soldiers and munitions of
war. Horse doctors We're appointed
TO sanitate fever-stricken camps To-
Gated to help the flatulent purses of
railway systems like that of Plant.
Degenerate sons of illustrious fathers
helped to swell the roll of well-paid
lncompetents who followed the army
as suffers follow the flag.
Out of our borrowed money we
paid for the medical supplies that
were not furnished to our men who
died on Montauk Point; out of this
came the salary of Alger and the
pension OF Egan; out of this came
Inc pay OF the commission that
heard the one and whitewashed the
other.
the fever-fushed prosperity of 1898
was largely speculative. 1t was the
result OF abnormal conditions. ONLY
wars and rumors of wars served to
prevent collapse. Immense military
expenditures and naval estimates pre-
serve the frail fabric from falling
in hideous ruin and combustion
down." Today we are looking over
capitalization in the face. Whatever
prosperity there was came without a
single change in the monetary laws.
IL was business reaction aided by
abnormal and unusual factors. When
the tenant of the White House did
get the statute making machinery
into operation, when gold was finally
made the standard of value by stat
utory enactment, no great good re-
suited.
The Paramount Issue.
The issue of the republic or an en-
pire is the overlapping issue of the
campaign. Minor questions of nation
al politics may come and go. Fac
tons may form and fade. Secondary
issues may at times demand and re-
ceive the attention of the electorate;
but when the ideals of century are
questioned, when the principles of the
founders of the government are doubt
ed, when sordid commercialism
shameless in it's lust of gain, seizes
the power of government and with
impious hands dares to pollute the sa-
cred instruments of the republic fac
lions are silent, minor differences are
forgotten, and the voices of discord
are hushed. In such a time as this
men who love country and not party,
who prize the true and not the falla-
cious, who believe in the merit of
manhood and not in the glimmer Of
gold. who believe that what we want
is not more men in the Philippines
but more men in the White House,
stand square and firm, unmoved by
threat of force or fear of power.
Three generations ago the followers
of Hamilton threatened to engraft
upon the infant republic the forms of
continental monarchy.
The times demanded a man and he
| came from the ranks of the demo
cratic party-Thomas Jefferson. Two
generations ago that survival of fed
eralism, the United States bank, I'M
der the lead of Nicholas Biddle,
threatened to undo the work of forty
years and take from the people the
substance of the power tho it left
the form. Again the times demanded
man and again he came from the
ranks of the democratic party-An-
drew Jackson. One generation ago u
slave-holding aristocracy raised the
flag of disunion and threatened the
nations life. Again the times de-
manded man and the soil of demo-
cratic Kentucky gave us that man
who belongs not in the ranks of mod
ern republicanism, but whose name
is listed among the saints in the Val
halla of emocracy-Abraham Lin
coin. And in this generation when
the evils of the old times are
added unto by the evils of the new
| times, when the minions of mercenary
commercialism threaten to grasp the
substance of power, when once
great party in the hands of faithless
leaders attempts to assign the peo-
pies rights in trust to an oligarchy
OF wealth, when horde of vampire
combinations feed and fatten upon the
necessities of the people, when bias
phemous leaders masquerade under
the mantle of the man of Gallilee
concealing beneath the robe of right
BUSINESS the sword of slaughter, when
a new school of politicians attempts
to annul the declaration and make
the constitution but a charter of
u buS, "llCh IilC ludL udo SIOOu
for freedom from the days of George
III, down to the days of Mckinley
when this ensign is made the symbol
of subsection, the pennant of poly
gamy, and the flag of force; then
again the times demand man. And
again democracy, that furnished a
Jefferson, that provided a Jackson,
that produced a Lincoln comes for
ward with a man.
Out of the west he comes, the west
where men are made great. Out of
the electric west where discussion is
still free and liberation common vir-
tue. Out of the newer west that
thinks with the wisdom of the older
east. Out of the west of sunshine
and sunlight, of boundless plains, and
prairies broad. Out or the west that
looks eastward thru the current
of the father of waters and westward
to the summit of the Rockies. Out of
this west comes a leader, as firm as
old William the Silent, as pure as the
white plume of Henry of Navarro, as
just as the elder Brutus and as vir-
tuous as the younger, and his name,
my friends, is Bryan of Nebraska.