Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1903-03-26
The ISSUE is NAMED.
Democrats Discuss the Coming Cam
paign at Party Love Feast.
Tammany's Candidate for President
Urges Warfare Upon the Trusts,
Taxation and the
Tariff.


many's candidate for president of the
united States, asked of the members
and guests of the Iroquois club at its
annual Jackson day banquet at the
Auditorium, Chicago, on the evening of
Monday, March 16. In his answer to
the question Mr.. Shepard sounded a
note of warning to the democratic par
ty against the invention of an issue,
and declared that the real issue was
trusts against trades unionism.
Mr.. Shepard's prominence as a pros
pective candidate for the democratic
nomination for president easily made
him the chief speaker of the evening.
His enunciation of the principles of
the party, as he interpreted them, was
received with enthusiastic applause at
every point.
Mr.. Shepard spoke as follows:
This gathering illustrates the familiar
truth that the democratic party is not a
body of ~unchanging membership or fixed
programme. We lave in times past Diff
Tered among ourselves in political judg-
ment, sometimes so far as to vote on OPP
posite sides. Nevertheless all are tonight
drawn together by a common view Of pres
ent political necessities and by intention,
or at least sincere wish, to cooperate now
and hereafter.
1T Is a mistake to fancy our party or any
party Is an end in itself. 1t can never be
more h a means to an end. There Is a
general and long time purpose and result
for which the democratic party was born
ana TO which II Is of necessity dedicated,
so long as it remains true to itself. Were
1t not for this the divisions and sometime
nostillties between men who are or who
deem themselves to be democrats might
well depress us.
Nor Is this fundamental faith doubtful,
howsoever much we may have differed in
applying 1t to specific exigencies or policies.
1t includes equality of privilege among all
citizens of the republic, and therefore for
bid privileges to any citizen or body of
citizens not in theory and in fact open on
equal terms to the whole body; it forbids
use of the overs of government for any
purpose not common to the whole people;
it forbids taxation for any purpose not
strictly public; 1t requires every citizen to
bear a share of the burdens of government
fully fully ratable to his ability.
People ShOuld Support Government.
1T refuses utterly and peremptorily to
concede in theory or in practice that the
small number of men who make up an ad-
ministration or congress can determine
better than the vast body, ten thousand
times as numerous, of citizens. in private
life, what lawful industries ought to be
helped and what ought to be hindered.
The democratic doctrine is summed up in
the ancient aphorisms that the people
= should support the government and not
the government support the people, and
that government should rest on the con-
sent of the governed. All who believe this
summary of the law and the prophets
ought to act with the democratic party,
for truly they belong to it. Nor ought past
differences over the means of reaching
that truly democratic end and result to
stand in the way.
"Those who would Illustrate rather than
promote this democratic result ought not
to be in the democratic party. They who
believe that the government can better
transact the business of the citizen than
the citizen himself. who believe that in the
long run 1t is more wholesome that a small
number of able and possibly wise and pos
sibly benevolent men should control and
direct the masses of their fellow men rather
than they should control and direct them
selves, they to whom the splendor and dig
nifty OF government of themselves make an
end apart from the benef1cence and fair
ness OF its concrete purposes-all these in
the politics of to-day belong, or ought to
belong, to the republican party. Among
them are many men. high-minded, intel
Hgent, patriotic men, with whom in other
fields, business, charitable, religious, liter
airy or social, / rejoice to work. Blu we
democrats ought not to wish them in our
party. For, If they be sincere, we should
receive their support only at the price of
surrender of some part of the sole justifica-
ton, the very reason OF the being, of the
democratic party.
Should Think of 1908.
Il do not, therefore, %sympathize with
programmes of skillful and adroit manage
ment for 1904 or for any other campaign
upon the idea that it is of little moment
what the end desired by the voter so long
as he votes with us, or upon the idea that,
lest we shall ALLEVIATE some part Of our
support, our opinions had best be secreted
or our practical plans delayed until after
we are in power.
w do well to think of 1904, but even for
success in 1904 we shall do better to think
also of 1906 and 1908 and the whole future.
Our party ought, when 1t comes into pow
err. to have a true and settled purpose ready
to carry out; it ought never to seek a helter-
SHELTER triumph Of agglomerated and dis
cordant discontents with republican ad-
mlnlstrat1on-a victory to be followed by
nothing effectively useful to the country.
by no exhibition of efficient, sound, orderly
craftsmanship on a sincere and open pro-
gramme of our own. Such a victory would
bring neither honor nor real power, 1t il
always better for a party tina its utilities
be exhibited when out of office than when
In office.
Above all, let us not invent an issue or
try to. Issues grow; they are not made.
Few things In public life are less admir-
able. few things more directly lead to fail
ure than the effort Of a great party, ignor-
Ing the purpose of its own existence, in
uTtrnd hyv M I ~ haoNr t~1 --I : D.
distinct result. to patch together a plat
form upon which harmony may bring sue
cess, to adopt this plank or that to catch a
passing sentiment without expectation. IL
chosen to power, Of putting It into practice.
Nor can anything be worse than in any
measure to rely for success on hard times.
DO not misunderstood me to say that
the election of this year or next ought NOT
to turn upon Its own issues. Politics is
no science Of principles, but the art of an
plying them. If politics not concerned with
longtime purposes of good government and
popular rights is a ys-jtable treason II ia
equally plain that politics not timely is
ridiculous.
MUST Consult Plain People.
Conceded, then, that the issues must be
great and timely and that upon them we
democrats must unfiinchingly take our own
democratic position, no matter what the Of
-. 49, "eNS ASSoebA1C lO
this there is no fit answer except respectful
Difference to the plain and onpmporaneous
expressions of the people themselves. Thew
talk and write about what to them is time.
ly snd important, and political parties
must talk and act about the same thing.
But what Is the thing Of which the
American people are thinking hard and
at which must center the sound, practical
politics of our opposition? Is 1t aught else
than the fear Of the disappearance of in |
dustrial liberty? The ak from one end Of
the land to the other, in every shop. on
every farm, In every street, in every parlor
or club. is not of the Panama canal or
Venezuela or China, important as are
those topics. 1t is not even free trade or
protection or the gross wrong and folly of
our Philippine policy or the alarming ex-
travagance Of administration; 1t is neither
OF these really great questions which fills
the. mind inc dominates the anxiety Of
the American masses.
M Ultima 4o1Ira L. IN $500 -. HrlfH.l