Aberdeen herald. [volume] (Aberdeen, Chehalis County, W.T.) 1886-1917, 1900-08-23
REPUBLICAN PARTY CHANGED
Since the Days of Lincoln. Party
Positions Reversed.
CHANGE WILDLY CoNTRAsTED
By James Creelman. Hanna Has Taken
the Place Of Lincoln In the Re-
publican Party.

1t is difficult to understand how an
American who was a republican in the
time of Lincoln's leadership can be re-
publican now. Then the republican
party stood for the supremacy of man.
hood now it stands for the supremacy
OF money.
The vital idea in the republican policy
thirty-five or forty years ago was ex-
pressed by Lincoln when he said that no
man ever lived who was good enough to
own another man.
Think of the change that has occurred
since that day! Then the democratic
party was, in sense, in the position
which the republican party now occupies.
The democratic leaders defended the
right of a man to own slaves because a
slave was property recognized by law.
To attack slavery or slave-owning was to
attack the sacred institution of property.
1t was the putting of sentiment above
the solid institutions Of the country. 1t
was an appeal to passion against law
and the established order.
The democratic leaders recognized that
there was something to be said against
slavery as an abstract condition or insti-
tuition, Just as the republican leaders to-
day admit that there is something to be
said against the establishment OF subject
colonies in Porto Rico and the Philip
pines, and the humiliation of COMPETE
ton and opportunity by the trusts. But
slavery existed. We could not deny it.
1t was here, right or wrong, and it must
stay. We could not help ourselves.
Is there not familiar ring to such
reasoning today? 1t is the republican
party which now proclaims the helpless
doctrine so sternly opposed by Lincoln,
and it is the democratic party which
quotes the arguments of Lincoln in sup
port of its present position. The moral
fire which once illumined the republican
party is extingushed, and its humanity
has persisted. 1t is party of sordid
commercialism; it is organized greed.
Hanna has taken the place of Lincoln.
The truth is that Mr.. Bryan has taken
up the burden of the struggle against
tyranny and injustice and inhumanity at
the very point where Lincoln laid it down.
The position of the two parties on the
principal issues is exactly reversed.
1t is the democratic party.which says
today that it is a crime against humanity
and an abandonment of our national
traditions to establish subject colonies
under our flag, to hold millions of UNI
willing colonists in political slavery by
armed force. 1t is the republican party
which declares that we have already es-
tablished colonies, and that we must
continue to own colonies because we cam
not help ourselves. 1t is the democratic
party which says, as Lincoln said, that
this nation cannot long endure half free
and half slave, that we are not only yio-
lating the moral law OF the universe, but
that we are abandoning the most vital
feature of our form OF government and
breaking down our strongest safeguards
against the recurrence of monarchy. 1t
is the democratic party which points to
the colonial system established by Presi-
dent Mckinley as violation OF the here
tofore tenaciously defended spirit of our
Constitution-the written charter of our
liberties-and sure and swift breeder
of militarism. 1t is the democratic party
which insists that large and inevitably
growing military establishment employ
ed to keep millions of colonists in state
of political subsection may one day be
used by a trust-supported tyrant as 6
,, weapon against the people who have
n made it possible.