The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1900-03-09
INSURGENTS" AND TRAITORS
(Chicago Chronicle.)

The Republican bosses OF the house,
who are merely sub-bosses for the
tariff cormorants, are not only filled
minds them that one-third of the people
of Porto Rico have been reduced to
pauperism by the policy which has de-
prived them of markets for their pro-
ducts, but they are filled with rage by
the behavior of the insurgents" against
their authority in their own party.
They do not hesitate to apply stron-
ger name to those who still have some
conscience, some independence and
some sense of the obligation of their
oath to support the constitution of the
United States. They do not hesitate
to call such men TRAITORS" Mr.. Little
field of Maine is one of those to whom
they apply that epithet.
Mr.. Littlefield's offense consists in
assuming that when it becomes neces-
sary to make a choice between the party
bosses and the constitution it is his
duty to obey the latter. 1t consists
in going to the length even of assum-
ing that it is his duty to disobey the
commands of the bosses when obedience
necessarily involves ineXcusable wrong
and pitiless cruelty for the benefit of
protected monopolists.
Mr.. Littlefield made a speech last
Saturday, in the course of which he
said that when a great question of prin-
ciple, of right and wrong was present
ed, he should do right, "as God gave him
to see the right" He was a good deal
of an imperialist. He wished our flag
to float in "the occident and in the
orient" not as the emblem of arbitrary
power, but as 1.-The emblem Of our inte-
gritty and good faith, of blessings of
christian civilization. of human rights
guaranteed by the constitution, not
dependent upon the will of state or
national legislatures, too often alright
ed at their own shadows-rights imbed-
ded in the constitution, not floating as
empty bubbles on the perturbed surface
of eloquent perorations, rights that are
eternal and worldwide, not ephemeral
and circumscribed."
Evidently Mr.. Littlefeld will be out
of place in the Republican party so long
as he honestly entertains such senti-
ments and acts in accordance with
them. The men who contro! the party
who formulate it's principles and dictate
it's policies, regard such sentiments as
reasonable. They have repudiated the
doctrine of our declaration Of 1776 that
certain rights are eternal and world
wide. They regard that doctrine as out
of date. Their doctrine is that no peo-
pie have any rights except such as they
are able to set up and defend by the
strong arm-by superiority in the use of
the most effective engines of wholesale
murder.
They treat with contempt the doctrine
repeatedly enunciated by the supreme
court that the constitution follows the
flag and that the rights which it guaran-
tees extend to every acre Of the nation
al domain. They sneer at John Marshall
once esteemed as a great jurist, because
he wrote an opinion when he was chief
justice Of the United tates. in which
he said: "The District of Columbia or
the territory west of the Missouri Is not
less within the United States than
Maryland or Pennsylvania; and it is
not less necessary, on the principles of
our constitution, that uniformity in the
imposition of imposts, duties and ex-
cises should be observed in one than in
the other"
The great statesmen and jurists who
now run the Republican party in the
interest of monopoly contemptuously
brush this aside because it didn't take
but a week for the court to reach that
conclusion. They also treat with con-
tempt the opinion of the same court
handed down some fifty years later,
| that; There certainly is no power
given by the constitution to the federal
government to establish or maintain
colonies bordering on the United States
or at distance to be ruled and govern