The Leon reporter., 1902-07-17
COCHRAN AS a DEMosTnENEs

!
many Wigwam in New York city w.
Bourke Cochran renewed his fame as an
orator, and made what many claim was
the most remarkable address heard in
recent years in this country. Many
thought that never had president and
his administration been so pilloried.
Pertidy and tyranny in theltreatment of
the Filipinos and Cubans, selling out to
the sugar and other trusts; subserviency
to notorious lobby, servility to the
tariff and other barons, and protection
Of close friends accused of misappropri-
ating the government funds were only
few of the counts in the indictment
drawn by Cochran against the present
occupant of the White House.
His arraignment of the Republican
Congress and President runs in this
vein:
"There is a wide difference, yawn-
| ing chasm between those Americans
who regard the Declaration of Inde.
pendence as merely an interesting bit of
controversial ingenuity or fine speci-
men of literary excellence and those
Americans who reverence it as an i'm
mortal. l.declaratio oflnaienable and un.
iversal rights, the imperishable monu-
ment of human progress. Every depar-
ture from its principles springs from a
desire to impair its authority and is i'm.
perlalistic, c,anti-American, anti Christian.
This is the vital distinction to-day be.
tween the democratic and republican
parties. And the measures which di-
vide the two are the subjugation of pro-
tective tariff and the granting of subsi-
dies to American shipping. Does any
body doubt that rather than allow the
products of the Philippine Islands free
access to our markets the republicans
would cut them adrift in an hour? Any
advantage to us means levying tribute
upon the Filipinos. And tribute mas
ever been the ruin of every country
which exacted it. Such tribute is the
profit of plunder. 1t deadens enter
prise, corrupts morals, discoursges pro-
duction and demoralizes industry. The
nation which forsakes industry for pill
age is hopelessly and irretrievably lost.
While the fruits of imperialism in the
east are as yet undisclosed, in Cuba it
has thrown off its mask. There we see
this government reduced to impotency
and Cuba to ruin by quarrel between
two imperialistic plunderers. We have
seen the passage Of bill which the i'm.
perialistic president himself declared an
obligation of honor, and justice forbid.
den and prevented by abhorrent force.
Never in the history of the world has
the sordidness of imperialism and its
power of decentralization been rewarded
so conspicuously.
the representative branch of the
government by practical abdication of
its functions has sunk beneath con.
tempt, and political institutions never
survive forfeiture of public respect.
And above all, we have begun to show
that intallable symptom of national de.
cay which has been conspicuous in ey.
cry country where justice is declining
and corruption growing. We are told
that the perpetrators of murders and
p!llage will be severely punished, bu,
whoever exposes them is denounced as
an enemy of his country and of the
army, for they have furnished the ma
jority of those who have won its victor
les aud established its glories. Because
they deeply cherish its fame so largely
their own creation, they insist that the
standard of military ethics shall be con.
tinued to be the conduct of Washing
ton, of Jackson, of Grant and of Sher
man, not that it shall become the
conduct of Waller and He'll Roaring
Jake.
Democrats who are determined te
discourage barbarities by the relentless
exposure CT every one responsible fol
them are the true friends of the army
not the men who would encourage de-
morallzation by shielding from expos
, ure of punishment the authors of name
less crimes. The men who have reflect
ed glory and. credit on the American
army are the objects of democratic
affection; the men who bring disgrace
upon the uniform seem to be the objects
OF republican solicitude. While those
republicans profess special regard fol
the army and while they try to shield
those who discreditit they endeayor to
! humiliate those who dignity it.''
Bourke Cochran is the Demosthenes
Of the New York democracy and hi.
latest speech has enthroned him even il
the hearts of Tammany, from which
lynx'eyed society he has been eyed bul
coldly in recent years.