Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1900-10-24
Mark L. Crawford Deserts the Dem
ooratic Party.
PROMINENT CHICAGO ] LABORITE
He is Not Afraid of Gold STANDARD
Nor Imperialism.
CIV ES HIS ASON IS
Special Dispatch to The Evening Star.

Special Dispatch to The Evening Star.
CHICAGO, October 24-Mark L. Craw-
ford, ex-president of the International
Typographical Union. ex-president of the
Chicago Trades Assembly and first secre-
tary of the American Federation of Labor
is supporting the republican ticket this
year and will vote for Mckinley and Roose-
velt He has always voted the democratic
ticket heretofore, and his reasons for not
doing so this year are given by himself as
follows:
Il have voted the democratic ticket ever
since have had vote. I have acted with
the party that every four years since 1860
has in it's platforms viewed with alarm
the results Of republican success at the
polls and the tendency of republican rule
toward Imperialism. With much mental res
ervation I followed the party in its decla-
ration that the civil war was failure its
opposition to specie payment, its greenback-
ism, it's tariff for revenue only and last
but not least its 16 to policy. But 1 must
decline to take another dose of 16 to l and
ticket On looking backward 1 am Impress
ed with the feeling that the war was not
failure; that specie payment not only
came. but came to stay; that greenbackism
was only result Of indigestion; that we
tried tariff for revenue only to our sorrow,
thus closing our manufacturing industries,
paralyzing the business of the country and
making paupers of millions of honest work
ingmen.
Bryan False Prophet.
I'VE were told four years ago by the
apostle of 16 to l that unless the govern
ment adopted the remedy he had discovered
the country would go to the devil The
people decided that inasmuch as he could
not show them where any of his prophecies
Jo 4 h. f,l
therefore indorsed the standard of money
that the world has tried and not found
wanting-gold. The result of such decision
was marvellous when we consider the depth
of want and gloom into which a tariff for
revenue only had sunk us.
-Four years ago. when the business of
the country was paralyzed<wh when large
armies of honest unemployed men were
tramping the country seeking work, when
soup houses had to be established all over
the country to prevent starvation, Mr..
Bryan said to these hungry people: There
is no end to the gold standard. You think
you have suffered, enough; your suffering
has just begun. You think there has been
enough depression, but depression has but
just commenced He failed to say that it
was democratic administration that had
caused the suffering. II the last four years
are the sample of the suffering we are to
have under a gold standard. l for one am
ready and willing to suffer. The gold
standard IS still deck and yet the ma
ton has never experienced more posi-
tive Improvement. Property has increased
in value business has revived and the great
army of unemployed has largely disap-
peared.
Not Frightened at Imperialism.
"Imperialism does not frighten me in the
least. l heard the imperialism cry against
Abraham Lincoln in the sixties, when those
who are crying the loudest about it now
were shooting holes through such grand
Jeffersonian democrats as General John
c. Black. 1 have heard it every four years
since, and yet the nearest approach to I'M
perialism 1 now call to mind was the Off
cial act Of democratic President by the
advice of a democratic Attorney General,
who is now advocating the election OF Mr..
Bryan in sending an army of soldiers INTO
the state of Illinois against the protests OF
the local and state officials and during the
great railroad strike of 1892.
..With me, my patriotism stands first and
nv politics comes afterWard.