Ottumwa semi-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1899-1903, 1900-09-11

the responsibilities that came to us as
result of our own voluntary action in
declaring war upon Spain, the size of
our army has been slightly increased.
Subsequent events in China have prov
ed that such step is also necessary
II we are to protect our representa-
tlves and citizens abroad and maintain
our dignity and honor turnout the
world. The argument that 100000
of people, electing their own rulers at
short intervals of time, could have
their liberties endangered by small
force of 100000 men, is too absurd to
deceive even the unthinking. We are
told, therefore, that this is but the be-
ginning. Such statement amounts
simply to declaration that the people
are unfit to be trusted. The republl-
can party believes that we may do all
that national safety and honor demand
and trust that in the future the people
shall permit this and no more to be
done.
Thus by declaiming necessarily
against imaginary dangers do they
hope to blind the people to the fact
that the democratic leaders of today
are the very men who promulgated the
wild yagaries of the Chicago platform.
But the people will not forget that i'm
mediately upon his inauguration Mr..
Bryan would order the troops to be
withdrawn from the Philippines, that
what he calls Imperialism would be at
an end, and that we should then have
four long years of Organism and ma
tional humiliation.
They talk about the Declaration of
independence as if they We're the sole
guardians of this Ark of the Covenant.
But the Kansas City platform states
theory which, if it could be put into
practice, would give the lie to every
word of that immortal document It's
principles all rest upon the doctrine
that the people can be safely trusted
with unlimited power. But it is now
proposed that the people shall use the
brute power of numbers to repudiate
their honest obligations. If this should
be done our political contests would
| soon degenerate into fierce warfare OF
classes, the friends of liberty could no
longer point to us to prove that the
people can be safely trusted with DOW
err and the apologists of despotism
turnout the world would use our con-
duct as an illustration of the fact that
democracy must always consume it.
self.
Democratic orators are quoting Alb
raham Lincoln and other leaders of the
republican party. But while those
same great leaders were laboring to
crush human slavery, and to give this
| nation new birth of freedom, the
| democratic party was meeting in con-
vention and demanding that slavery be
admitted to the territories, calling for
a more rigid enforcement of the fugi-
tive slave law, a law more repugnant
to every doctrine of the declaration of
! independence than any that ever dis
| graced our statute books, end when
| the life OF the nation was trembling in
the balance they sOlemnly declared the
war failure and demanded an imme-
| date cessation of hostilities. But now,
| When 1t is expedient that they should
| do so, they build sepulchers for the
prophets whom their fathers stoned.
| They have not always been so Jealous
Tor the doctrine that government rests
upon the consent of the governed, and
even today their zeal lags in those
parts of the country where the doc
trine conflicts with their own selfish
interests. 1t is an old maxim, and one
having very high authority, that "by
| their fruits We shall know Them
One of the most distinguished Of the
former leaders of the democratic par
ty has declared that "the paramount
issue of this campaign is Organism"
| This is fact that the declaration o.
no platform can alter. The only adj
dition to the active leadership of the
party since 1896 has been Tammany
Hall, and the changes in the platform
| have resulted, not from change Of
| heart on the part of it's authors, but
| from the demands of expediency. The
overshadowing question of the present
campaign is this: Do the American
people wish to be ruled by Richard
Croker and the men discovered by that
body known to history as the Chicago
convention?
Once more the republican party en-
tiers national campaign as the cham
pion of those great principles Of liber-
ty and progress that have brought us
to the front rank of the great nations
of the world; it enters the contest un>
der the leadership of William McKin-
ley, one of the purest and wisest of a
long line of illustrious statesmen it
wages unrelenting warfare against the
party that has declared for policy of
reaction-that advocates principles
that would demoralize our industries
and tarnish our national honor.
The young men of the country
should feel peculiar interest in the
results of this campaign. If the seeds
of folly are to be sown, it is they who
must reap the fruits. If this nation is
to listen to evil counsels, and depart
from the path of duty and progress
that it has kept over a hundred years,
if it is to adopt a policy Of reaction, if
it is to stoop to dishonor, if it is to pass
into the throes of class warfare, the
baneful results will fall with greatest
weight, not upon the present, but upon
the generations that are to come. The
vast army of young men who are to
cast their first presidential votes this
fall should therefore take an active
part in the struggle now in progress
To secure this result the First Voters
Republican National League has been
formed, and is engaged in organizing
the first voters in all the states The
plan of the work is as follows: Eacfr
local league, when organized, shall ar