Mexico weekly ledger., 1900-01-25
DEMOCRACY IN 1900.
As Champ Clark Sees the Political
Conditions for the Democratic
Party This Year.

From the Springfield Record.
I believe in conscience In politics.
II political party is nothing but an
organized raid upon the ofiices, 1t
matters not baubee who carries the
eleeticns; but it is much more--a
higher, better thing. It is, or at any
rate should be, an organization OF
citizens who entertain certain theories
OF government In common and who
propose to enact those theories iEto
laws for the benefit Of their country
and their kind should they be en-
trusted with power 60 to do.
So believing, 1t appears TO me that
we are bound BY every conceivable
reason to rsadopt the financial plank
Of the Chicago platform, word for
word, syllable by syllable, abatine
neither jot nor tiltle Of that second
Declaration OF American Independ-
ence. Il ought to be done both as a
matter oil principle and as matter Of
expediency; as principle, because we
were right In 1895 and what was right
then 10 not wrong now; as matter Of
expediency, because by changing it
so as to weaken it, for every vote
gained 10 the East we would lose two
or three or dozen in the West and
South. am utterly opposed to such
suicidal policy. Why should we
throw away the certainty Of carrying
Missonri and Arkansas for the bare
possibility Of carrying New York and
Connecticut?
The financial bill now pending in
Congress is the worst ever presented,
debated or voted on In ali our history.
1t not only establishes the single gold
standard by law but turns the para
mount function Of government, the
issuing of money snd regulating the
value and volume thereof over to the
tender mercies Of the National Bank
Associatjon-a power too vast and too
dangerous to be farmed out or dele
gated to any man or to any set Of
men.
We are right on the money question
and will prevail In the end. Not only
America, bnt the world will return to
bimetalIism under an impulse Of self
preservation too strong to be resisted.
Time servers, political weather cocks
ana advocates Of expedIency are doing
their Ievel best to hamstring us-not
only in Imperial Missouri but else
where-and unless we keep our optics
perpetually peeled they will succeed;
and then we are undone.
In the meantime the Republicans
have advanced from one iniquity to
another until they are owned abso-
lutely by those who purchased the
last presidential election for them.
They really appear to belong to that
class Of people described by st. Paul
as "glaring 10 their shame"
In addition to reedopting the finan-
cial plank Of the Chicago platform
and Subsidiary thereto we must, II we
are true TO the sacred cause of repre-
sentative government, adopt a plank,
strong as IL can be, against Mark
Hanna's new tangled and un-Ameri-
can doctrine of Imperialism. For us
to go into the hazardous and unproflt-
able business of annexing Asiatic
islands or 9 part of the main land is
certainly the most preposteFous
scheme ever hatched in the brain of
man. By 80 doing we fly in the face
OF every. statesman of any consequence
that this country ever produced,
threw the sage advice OF the fathers
to the dogs, undertake to do what all
experience proves to have been the
ruin of nations and enter upon the
broad pathway to the deuce. In the
name of the proud race TO which I
belong and for the sake of representa-
tive government protest against such
sublimated idiocy.
When Moses with inspired pen
wrote on tables Of stone amid the
lightnings and thunders of Mt. Sinai
the fatefuI sentence, "Thou shalt not
steal,n he gave the trusts a hard
thwack and came near exhausting
the subject
In our next platform VIC will re-
adopt that stern declaration of the
great Jewish law-giver and state il
more particularly and more at length
than he did. 1t has come to this:
Either the trusts must 60 or the great
body of the people will be reduced to
the condition OF Mexican poems or
Russian serfs before they were eman-
cipated.
Republican grinders like the
Globe Democrat may make all the fun
they please Of octupus chasers; but
we will, nevertheless and notwith-
standing, chase them to finish.
We should also adopt strong plank
In favor Of ECONOMY In the public
expense that labor may be lightly
burdened" and one In favor OF an in
come tax, for it is q monstrous prop
osition that the aggregated and abb
normal wealth OF the country shall
not bear its just proportions of the
public burdens. CHAMP CLARK.