Amador ledger., 1900-10-26
Lifelong Democrat Chang
es Politics.
GIVES POINTED REASONS FOR HIS ACTIONS
The Democratic Party Is Radical,
Revolutionary, Impractical
and Populistic.

which we take the following:
| Ladies and Gentlemen: All nv life
have been Democrat After mature
reflection have determined to publicly
change my political affiliation, and thiI
evening make this public confession
OF the faith that is in me.
l am opposing the Democratic part,
because it is now radical, revolutionary
impractical and populistic, and because
its present aspirations are menace tC
the welfare OF the country.
| am supporting the z,Repu blicar
party because it is conservative, pfac.
tical, progressive, and creative, ano
because Its success at this election is
necessary to the continuance of pros
perity.
am leaving the Democratic party
because that party has dethroned JET.
ferson, the man of thought, the states.
man, the philosopher, who believed in
sound money and territorial expansion,
and has enthroned Bryan, the man OF
words, who mistakes epigrams for
ideas, rhetoric for philosophy, decla.
nation for wisdom, personal ambition
for patriotism, and a dishonest dollar
for an honest one.
| d0dluSI
the Democratic party because it has
nominated for the Presidency a mar
who, as that old Democratic war-horse
Henry Watterson, said only two years
| ago, is not of the material of which
the people of the United States have
ever made President, nor of which
any party has ever before made a
candidate;' because his speeches tend
to disturb the peace and order of the
state by their appeals to class distinc.
tions that do not exist and to an an
| tagonism between capital and labor
that can not obtain in this country as
at present organized; and because he
| is not honest with the American peo.
pie.
| am entering this campaign on be-
half of the Republican party because its
candidate for the Presidency has as
President proved himself to be a skill
full pilot of our ship of state in stormy
seas, has shown himself to be one
whom sudden emergencies can not con-
fuse, nor great problems overcome,
during whose wise administration the
country has been blessed with prosper
ity and crowned with national glory,
and whose continuance in office for the
next four years is a guarantee to our
hopes of their anticipated fulfillment.
Four years ago the country was
startled by the utterances of the Dem
ocratic National Convention as en-
bodied in the Chicago platform. AT
no prior time in its history had the
United States been in so deplorable a
condition. An industrial depression
covered the land like pail. For sew
eral years the unemployed had been
growing in numbers, in want and in
despair. Factories were empty, fur
naces were cold, and mills had ceased
to grind. Banks were closing their
doors, and depositors were losing their
savings. Railroads could not pay their
interest, and were passing into the
hands of receivers. The only armies
that paraded the land were disorderly
mobs of idle workingmen. Strikers in
almost every department. of labor
threatened the stability of the govern
ment. Neighbors were freinds or foes
as want or wealth united or divided
them.
1t was after several years of these
growing evils, and at time of general
gloom and discomfort, when the growl-
lngs OF hunger were becoming ominous
and lean hands were threatening to
take by force or stealth the bread they
had no opportunity to earn, that three
political national conventions assembled
to nominate candidates for the Presi-
dency. The Democrats, denouncing
with bitterness Grover Cleveland, the
only Democrat who had led them to
success since 1856, and who was in in
tegrity of character, nobility of purpose
in fearlessness and fortitude, one of the
greatest Americans, and the natural
enemy of the Altgelds and Bryans and
Tillmans, read him out of the party,
and with him Thomas jefferson, threw
all their teachings after them, and in
stalled in their stead the Boy Orator
from the Platte, William Jennings
Bryan, who mistook Organism for
Populism, and called it Democracy.
They sent him abroad as a Populistic
aspirant for the Presidency, and au-
thorized him to preach class distinc-
tions, to stir up bitterness on the part
of the many who had not against the
few who then had: to cry out against
the fortunate, the frugal, the prudent,
the snccessful; to put premium on
failure and a discount on success; to
threaten the independence of the iudic-
larry; to invite the people to financial
dishonor and certain bankruptcy; to
contradict every doctrine of economics
and to endeavor to bring about finan-
cial impossibility-the stability of the
double standard of gold and silver at a
fixed arbitrary ratio of sixteen to one.
independently of every other nation.
The Silver convention, with like Popu-
llstlc passion, was also captured by the
rhetoric of this mans cross of gold.
The Republicans answered all this
political and financial madness with a
platform that stood for sound, honest
money, Tor an independent judiciary,
Tor protection to American industries,
for peace and prosperity, for union and
not for disunion, and not for disaster
and dlssension, and upon this platform
they placed William Mckinley.
Bryan predicted that the going out
of his jack-o' lantern would leave the
world IN utter darkness, impenetrable
even by the flame that Liberty holds
alOft to light the world
Mckinley predicted that Republican
success would mean prosperity in place
of poverty, work instead of violence
for idle hands, wealth at home, honor
and respect abroad.
Mckinley was elected, and all the
dust of Organism disappeared. and this
country stepped out of the shadow into
the sun.
1t was because l believed that this
would be the result that in 1896 | voted
for Mckinley. 1t is because l believe
that the election of Bryan on the re-
christened Chicago platform would
undo much of McKinley's good work,
would disturb business, arrest enter
prise, and suspend the labor of thOu.