Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-07-16

When the nation Is IN danger the
volunteer is his country's best defend
er. The National Guard of the United
States should ever be cherished in the
patriotic hearts of free people. Such
organizations are ever an element of
strength and safety.
Private monopolies are indefensible
and intolerable. They destroy COM
petition, control the price of all
material and of the finished product,
thus robbing both producer and con-
sumner. They lessen the employment
of labor, and arbitrarily Fix the terms
and conditions thereof, and deprive
individual energy and small capital of
their oppol tunity for betterment.
We pledge the democratic party to
an unceasing warfare in nation, state
and city against private monopoly in
every form. Existing laws against
trusts must be enforced, and more
stringent ones must be enacted, pro-
viding for publicity as to the affairs
of the corporations engaged in inter-
state commerce, and requiring all
corporations to show, before doing
business outside the state of their
origin, that they have no water in
their stock, and that they have not
attempted and are not attempting to
monopolize any branch of business,
or the production of any articles of
merchandise, and the whole constitu
tional power of congress over inter-
state commerce, the mails and all
modes of inter state communication
shall be exercised by the enactment
of comprehensive laws upon the sub
ject of trusts.
Tariff laws should be amended by
putting the products of trusts upon
the free lists, to prevent monopoly
under the plea of protection.
Corporations should be protectedin
all their rights, and their legitimate
interests should be respected, but any
attempt by corporations to interfere
with the public affairs of the people,
or to control the sovereignty which
creates them, should be forbidden
under such penalties as will make
such attempts impossible.
We condemn the Dingley tariff law
as trust breeding measure skilfully
devised to give the few favors which
they do not deserve, and to place
upon the many burdens which they
should not bear.
&c
the interstate commerce law as will
enable the commission to protect in
dividuals and communities from dis
ordinations, and the public from
unjust and unfair transportation rates.
We reaffirm and indorse the princi-
pies of the national democratic
platform adopted at Chicago in 1896,
and we reiterate the demand of that
platform for an American financial
system, made by the American people
for themselves, which shall restore
and maintain bi-metallic price level,
and as part Of such system the imme-
date restoration of the free and
unlimited coinage of silver and gold
at the present legal ratio of Is to 1,
without waiting for the consent of any
other nation.
We denounce the currency bill en-
acted at the last session of congress
as a step forward in the republican
policy which aims to discredit the
sovereign right of the national gov
eminent to issue all money, whether
coin or paper, and to bestow upon
national banks the power to issue
and control the volume of paper
money for their own benefit. A per-
manent national bank currency,
secured by government bonds, must
have a permanent debt to rest upon.
and if the bank currency is to increase
with population and business the debt
must also increase. The republican
currency scheme is, therefore, "a scheme
for fastening upon the taxpayers a
perpetual and growing debt.
We are opposed to this private cor
poration paper circulated as money,
but without legal tender qualities, and
demand the retirement of the national
bank notes as fast as government
paper or silver certificates can be
substituted for them.
We favor an amendment to the fed
eral constitution providing for the